Looking to promote his new book, best-selling author James Frey is reportedly going back on the couch with Oprah Winfrey, five years after she barbecued him on her show for fabrications in his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces."
A rep for Oprah's production company, Harpo, confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that Frey's appearance would air "sometime in May."
Frey, who is out to promote his new book, "The Final Testament of the Holy Bible," will return to the show at some point in May, according to multiple reports. Initially a darling of the Oprah set, which propelled "A Million Little Pieces" to best-seller status after Oprah promoted the story in her book club, Frey came under fire from Winfrey when a report by The Smoking Gun indicated that details in Frey’s book were false. The book describes Frey’s agonizing recovery from drug addiction and the suicide of an ex-girlfriend.
Hitting Frey with statements like, “That’s a lie. It’s not an idea James,’’ and saying she “felt really duped’’ and that “I feel like you betrayed millions of readers,’’ Winfrey castigated Frey for inaccuracies in the supposed work of non-fiction. Frey admitted that certain parts of his memoir were fabricated, such as the time he spent in jail, which was only a few hours, not the three months that were claimed in the book.
In May of 2009, reports surfaced that Winfrey reached out by telephone and privately apologized to Frey for the public flogging. She reportedly invited him back to the show at that time, but he did not accept until now.
Since the controversy over the book and the public spectacle of the Oprah interview, Frey wrote another novel, "Bright Shiny Morning," and endured the death of his newborn son from a genetic neuromuscular disorder. He now is coming out with The "Final Testament of the Holy Bible," a fictional work in which the Messiah is a man named Ben Jones who lives in New York, drinks heavily and impregnates a prostitute.
The book will be a limited edition release of 10,000 copies by Gagosian Gallery and also sold as an e-book.