James Frey made a return appearance to Oprah’s show yesterday in an attempt to answer charges claiming his memoir A MILLION LITTLE PIECES is largely fabricated. I was critical of Oprah for her defense of Frey on LARRY KING LIVE, but she redeemed herself at the show’s start, saying her judgment had been “clouded” and that she had sent the message to the nation that truth doesn’t matter.

I’m sure Oprah doesn’t feel she’s wrong very often, so to admit that not once but numerous times throughout the broadcast is brave. But not as brave as Frey, who took such a beating from the host, the other guests and the audience members that I hope he didn’t start using shortly after exiting Harpo Studios. He owned up to some of the charges, but seemed awfully wishy-washy on others.

The best line of the hour went to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who asked about the scene where a bloody, vomitous Frey boards a flight, “How’d this guy get on an airplane? I can’t get on with a third piece of luggage.” I won’t recap the entire show since others already have done so, but I must take offense at publisher Nan Talese for trying to save her own reputation by saying that a memoir is an author’s “remembrance” of events. Which is true, Nan, until they actively create falsehoods; then it’s a novel.

Lessons learned from this ordeal: You can’t trust a drug addict, and you do not make Oprah look like a fool. Who knew?

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