Oprah's Unhappy Father Day

Wed., May. 23, 2007 11:32 AM PDT by Sarah Hall

Oprah Winfrey could probably use a little counsel from Dr. Phil about now.

The talk-show host said she was recently blindsided by the news that her father, Vernon Winfrey, had been working on a book about her behind her back.

"I was upset. I won't say devastated, but I was stunned," she told the New York Daily News Sunday while in Manhattan to accept the Elie Wiesel Foundation Humanitarian Award.

Winfrey said she laughed when one of her assistants told her that the newspaper had called to ask her about the forthcoming tome.

"I said, 'That's impossible. I can assure them it's not true,' " she said. "But then my sister said, 'I think you should call your father.'

"I called him and it turned out he is writing a book. The worst part of it was him saying, 'I meant to tell you I've been working on it.' "

But according to her father, reports of said book may have been exaggerated.

"There is no book," Vernon Winfrey, who runs a Nashville barbershop, told TV Guide. "We might think about it later on."

If he does go forward with the book, which he has reportedly been shopping under the name Things Unspoken, Vernon said he might not want to collaborate with his billionaire daughter on the project.

"I don't know," he said. "We have to decide."

As far as Winfrey's concerned, her mind is made up when it comes to the unauthorized biography.

"The last person in the world to be doing a book about me is Vernon Winfrey," she told the Daily News. "The last person."

Winfrey was 14 and pregnant when she left her mother's home in Milwaukee and moved in with her father in Nashville, where she gave birth to a son who died just weeks after he was born.

Now 53, the Queen of Daytime has credited her dad in the past for disciplining her and teaching her the value of education.

Though she said she hasn't seen Vernon, 74, since he accompanied her to Africa a few months ago, she said she speaks with him frequently by phone.

"We talk, we talk, we talk," she said. Which is why she "would have preferred to have known my father was working on this. It would have been a nice gesture, a courtesy."

Vernon isn't the only would-be biographer looking to cash in on his daughter's life story.

Earlier this month, Atlanta native Keifer Bonvillain managed to avoid jail time on charges that he tried to extort $1.5 million from Winfrey in exchange for keeping tapes of a disgruntled Harpo employee bad-mouthing the company's working conditions under wraps.

Bonvillain had threatened to turn the tapes into a book he claimed would ruin Winfrey's reputation. The talk show host turned to the FBI for help and Bonvillain was subsequently arrested.

Under the terms of his deal with federal officials, Bonvillain must complete 50 hours of community service, undergo drug testing, attend either work or school regularly and reimburse the FBI for the cost of its $3,000 investigation. In addition, the tapes with which he planned to blackmail Winfrey must never be leaked.

If Bonvillain completes the terms of his yearlong restitution program, the charges against him will be dropped.

Meanwhile, noted dirt-digger Kitty Kelley, chronicler of past high-profile subjects such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, has announced that Winfrey is her current target.

Though unearthing skeletons in closets is Kelley's specialty, she told the Washington Post in December that she was having trouble finding any unsavory information on Winfrey.

"So far, I don't see anything negative on this woman," she said. "I think she's a real icon."

Winfrey has said she has no intention of cooperating with Kelley, but that she's not attempting to block the project.

"If she wants to write a book, fine," Winfrey told the Daily News. "This is America. I'm not discouraging it or encouraging it."

Just don't expect her to choose it for her book club.