I don’t know why, but I’m totally surprised! I wonder what she’s got up her sleeve…

Oprah Winfrey will end her show after its 25th season wraps in 2011, according to publicists for her production company, Harpo.

This confirmation comes after speculation that Winfrey could be moving the popular syndicated talk show, which currently films in Chicago, to her new cable network, OWN, which is based in Los Angeles.

According to an employee, Winfrey told her staff about the plans during a meeting Thursday morning.

Winfrey also reportedly said that severance packages will be given to all employees with three or more years of experience  if they aren’t placed elsewhere in positions within Harpo.

Winfrey is expected to discuss the ending of her show in more detail during tomorrow’s show, which will taped live in Chicago.

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A flight attendant on Oprah Winfrey’s private jet filed a lawsuit Friday denying allegations that she had sex on board.

In the suit, Corrine Gehrls, 39, claims that fellow flight attendants Myron Gooch and Kirby Bumpus — who is the daughter of Winfrey’s best friend Gayle King and is Winfrey’s goddaughter — made the accusation that caused her to be fired.

The lawsuit claims that Gooch made the accusation — that Gehrls engaged in intercourse with chief pilot Terry Pansing, 57, during a flight in which the talk show host and other passengers slept “following their ingestion of sleeping pills” — after Pansing reportedly complained about his work schedule and demanded that he stay in nicer hotels than the rest of the flight crew.

Gehrls and Pansing passed polygraph tests after the accusation but were not rehired, the suit says.

Gehrls is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from Gooch, Bumpus and Harpo Inc., Winfrey’s production company.

A spokesperson for Harpo Inc. had no comment.

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It was a gesture designed to show the world how in love they were, but Mariah Carey didn’t think much of Nick Cannon’s attempts to kiss her on Oprah.

The singer was being interviewed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey when her husband came onstage and gave his wife a peck on the cheek.

But Oprah complained: ‘Oh you did that “We’ve been married a long time kiss”. You didn’t give the real kiss, come on.’

They shared an exaggerated smooch as Nick bent her over, before an uncomfortable looking Mariah stopped him, saying: ‘Don’t drop me!’

Then she pushed him away.

Mariah, 39, wed R’n'B singer Nick, 28, in April 2008 after they met at the Teen Choice Awards in 2005.

Nick said of their marriage: ‘I wake up feeling like the luckiest, most blessed man every morning.’

And when Oprah asked about the 11-year age difference between them, he said: ‘Age ain’t nothing but a number.’

Nick, who said he had always had a crush on Mariah growing up, said he told her: ‘I’m like, ‘Give me a chance.”

He also revealed that he had proposed by hiding a ring inside a lavender pink lollipop, saying he popped the question as they looked the Empire State Building from her New York apartment roof.

It had been lit up in lavender pink colours to mark her 18th number one record.

Mariah also showed Oprah how to apply her perfume, Forever – by squeezing a few drops between her breasts, and told her that she could learn from her moves.

And she also showed off her wedding ring.

Mariah said: ‘He [Nick] designed it and I’m very proud of him.’

The pair appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show live from New York’s Central Park.

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The Emmy’s will be held this coming Sunday night, and Oprah will follow the next day, with a Mad Men themed show!  So does this mean that Mad Men is going to sweep the Emmy’s? I sure hope so!  The episode is called “Oprah Goes Back in Time – The 60’s”

Mad Men is by far the best show on TV right now.  Mad Men, the front-runner for the drama series award, also has the advantage of insider buzz, and is set in the media-savvy world of advertising and promotional campaigns. Mad Men leads all drama series with 16 nominations.

From the looks of Oprah Winfrey’s Monday lineup, she appears to be betting that AMC’s “Mad Men” is going to be the big winner again at Sunday nightr’s Emmy Awards telecast on CBS.

Oprah is going totally 1960s Monday including a dress designed for her by Janie Bryant, the Emmy-Award-winning costume designer of the cable drama.

Her guests on Monday will be Jon Hamm and January Jones who play Don and Bettty Draper, the couple at the center of the drama. He’s a Madison Avenue ad agency executive with a troubled sense of identity, and she’s a pregnant mother of two in Connecticut with some real feelings of discontent.

The music will be from the 1960s, and the audience will be encouraged to come in ’60s garb, according to AMC.

It sounds like fun. But what if “Mad Men” has a really bad night at the Emmys? It has happened to great shows before. Well, there is always the Janie Bryant dress.

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Police Bomb & Arson investigators are examining a suspicious package found Friday outside Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions Inc. studio in Chicago, where she films her talk show.

A security guard found a dark-colored backpack with wires hanging out of it in a flowerbed outside the studio around 6:20 a.m., police tell Usmagazine.com.

The suspicious package did not blow up, and no one was hurt, police said, adding that the studio was not evacuated.

Chicago Police News Affairs Officer JoAnn Taylor tells Us, “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had quite the request for Oprah Winfrey.

Wintour had told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998, the editor revealed during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview on Sunday.

“It was a very gentle suggestion,” she said, laughing. “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight.”She added: “I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!”

Winfrey, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend. She was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: “Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover.”

“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet,” Wintour said. “And it was one of our most successful covers ever.” (more…)

Oprah Winfrey’s Montecito home is being evacuated after the Southern California wildfires have come within a few miles of her coastal ranch, a source tells Usmagazine.com.

The source tells Us that movers arrived at the talk show host’s $50 million mansion, which is located just outside of Santa Barbara, and have been packing her belongings to prepare for the evacuation as the blaze continues to spread.

Winfrey was not at the house on Friday, as she was taping The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago.

“The fires are nearby, but her house is not within the mandatory evacuation area,” A rep for Winfrey tells Us. “We’re continuing to monitor.”

Downtown Montecito is currently “under warning,” Michelle Phillips, an employee at the Jesusita Fire County Emergency Call Center tells Us.

“Residents should be ready to evacuate their homes at a moment’s notice,” Phillips says, adding that evacuation is mandatory at this point. “The [distance of the fire] can change very quickly, which is why residents are strongly advised to evacuate now while they still can.”

Dry air and high winds have frustrated efforts to control the wildfire, which began Tuesday and has driven more than 30,500 people from their homes on the edge of Santa Barbara. It has cost more than $2.6 million to battle, according to Bloomberg.com. Only 10 percent of the fire is contained and that it has damaged 75 homes so far.

Winfrey purchased the 6-bedroom property — which covers 42 acres and is 23,000 square feet — in 2001. Michael Douglas and Rob Lowe also live in the area.

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