The 'Oprah's Next Chapter' host is talking about her new film 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' when she suddenly feels the urge to give a free car to a random audience member on the ABC show.
- Aug 16, 2013
AceShowbiz - Oprah Winfrey has done it again. The former daytime talk-show queen gave away a free car to an audience member on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". Stopping by the ABC show on Wednesday night, August 14 to promote her new film "Lee Daniels' The Butler", the OWN CEO said she "just got that feeling again" in the middle of talking about Forest Whitaker's performance in the movie.
"I really didn't want it to happen here," she claimed, looking distraught, as Jimmy Kimmel asked her what was really happening to her. She then pointed to a girl wearing a grey-an-blue shirt from the audience to come to the stage and sit next to her. "This is what I want to say to you... You, you, you get a car!" Winfrey told the lucky girl named Britney.
"I feel better," she said as Britney was shown her new car parked outside the studio. "How often does this happen?" asked Kimmel, to which she jokingly replied, "Every once in a while, Jimmy, it just happens. Especially when I skip lunch."
Molly McNearney, Kimmel's wife who is also one of the head writers on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", later shares the story behind the giveaway. The team came up with the idea as a gag on Winfrey's famous cars giveaway on her former popular daytime show. "She liked the idea that she was overcome with this affliction, and that she had to shake it out of her system. She just wanted to randomly select someone. So she did," McNearney tells TV Guide.
"We had no idea who she was going to pick," she continues. "It was a rapid fire decision. There wasn't much thought into it. I spoke with Oprah at commercial right before we came back and she had no idea who she was going to pick. She hadn't even looked in the audience yet. But then a light came up, she could see the crowd and then just pointed her magical finger at one lucky woman."
Turns out Winfrey made the right pick as Britney indeed needed a new car. "I'm so happy that she picked someone that, as we now learned, is a great person," McNearney says. "And she desperately needed a new car. Apparently this girl Britney had a truck that keeps breaking down," she says of the lucky girl, who is a school teacher studying for her masters' degree in Iowa.
McNearney also reveals they had no problem getting a car, which was a new Ford Fusion Energy, for the giveaway. "I think if you use Oprah's name you can get whatever you want. Oprah wants to give away a car? 'Great, take it.' It was their most expensive model," McNearney explains how easy co-executive producer Doug DeLuca, who handles the show's sponsor partnerships, secured the car by mentioning the name "Oprah Winfrey" when making a call to Ford.
