From left: “The Color Purple” with stars Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Rae Dawn Chong. (©Warner Bros/Everett Collection)
Rae Dawn Chong – Oprah Winfrey’s co-star in “The Color Purple” – blasted the talk show queen in an expletive-laden radio interview, crudely comparing her to a slave.
Chong, who is the daughter of actor Tommy Chong, appeared on Matty P’s Radio Happy Hour where she unloaded for several minutes about her incredibly bitter feelings for the television icon.
According to the 52-year-old actress, Oprah was a “lovely” castmate on the set of “The Color Purple,” but things turned sour after Chong starred in 1985’s “Commando” with Arnold Schwarzenegger. She recalled being snubbed by Winfrey.
“That’s when she was a total biotch,” she emphasized. “I starred in ‘Commando.’ And she just wasn’t having me. She’s competitive. She didn’t like me. She just wasn’t having me.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
Chong continued in her vicious rant, “The thing that’s really great about Oprah that you can’t take away from her is that she’s a great brownnoser…if you go into a room with her she will pick the most powerful person and will become best friends with them….
“She was that fat chick that was a cheerleader or the wannabe cheerleader in school that was the student council president that was the best friends with the principal…she was the fat chick in school that did everything and everyone loved her. That’s Oprah.”
In a low point of the interview, Chong used crudely invoked racist imagery.
“If you look at the way [Oprah] looks, she looks like 60 years ago she would have been a house keeper luckily.” She then continued using a more offensive phrase we do not wish to repeat.
She concluded with a backhanded low blow.
“We have to give her props… this woman is a miracle and I respect her and I say kudos to you, and I don’t give two cents about the other parts of it. She shifted the DNA in terms of our thinking of a woman of a certain size and a certain shade. I love her for that.”