Oprah Winfrey to ‘pay for her crimes’?

Oprah Winfrey was just targeted by the cultural critic Ira Madison III.

Following his appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, The Wendy Williams Show and the Netflix drama You, the author has decided to launch his new accumulation of thoughts.

In the book, Pure Innocent Fun, which will be released on February 4, 2025, Madison reflects on his own life through the lens of pop culture and how it influenced his life from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Britney Spears.

An excerpt, that was exclusively revealed by PEOPLE magazine, shows how the veteran talk show host, former The Oprah Winfrey Show star, impacted the Keep It podcast host’s body image.

“One day, Oprah will pay for her crimes. I’m not talking about making snake oil salesmen like Drs. Oz and Phil famous or the 2018 film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time; I’m talking about her documentation of her weight loss from the ’90s until now,” he strongly wrote.

Madison continued, “If you were born in the ’90s, then Oprah has pretty much been the same size for most of your adolescence and adulthood. But for elder millennials, born in 1986 or earlier, and anyone older, Oprah’s journey with her weight has a very specific chokehold on you.”

“Oprah’s weight loss odyssey began with the November 15, 1988, episode (titled “Dreams Come True”) of her daytime talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, when she announced that she’d dropped a significant amount of weight in four months,” he recalled.

Further presenting his thoughts, Ira Madison III, penned, “And to further drive home the fact that she’d lost a lot of weight, she rolled out the exact amount in animal fat on a little red wagon. She wasn’t just hosting The Oprah Winfrey Show; she was doing shows, honey. Oprah was showing out, and as a result, “Dreams Come True” became the highest-rated episode of the program’s 25-year history (and it remains so).”