Oprah Winfrey got to turn the tables on David Letterman.
Making a rare appearance as an interviewee, the late-night host appeared on the 22nd season premiere of Winfrey's eponymous talk show Monday, his first visit to the syndicated chatfest, as the pair continued to distance themselves from the years-long, yet ultimately benign, feud that once clouded the airwaves.
Their rift started in the 1990s, when Letterman started an "Oprah Log" listing all the invitations he had received to be on her program. Every night, the tally was the same: zero.
"I wanted to be asked, Oprah," the Late Show personality told her today, opening the notebook he toted with him. "Don't you understand that? 'Day number 20, 11-27-01. Oprah. Noprah.' It was humiliating."
Winfrey, who then refused repeated requests to be a guest on the Late Show, saying Letterman's jokes made her "completely uncomfortable," explained she had figured his people would call her people if he wanted to be a guest on Oprah.
"Why didn't you just pick up the phone?" she asked.
The multimedia maven was the one who eventually waved the white flag, guesting on Letterman's show in 2005, an appearance that attracted about 13.5 million viewers, the program's highest rating since 1994 during the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding drama.
After their sit-down, Letterman then walked Winfrey down the street to the opening of the Broadway musical adaptation of The Color Purple, which she produced.
So now that they're all chummy, it was time for Winfrey to start asking the hard-hitting questions.
"So, you know, people call you interview-phobic," Winfrey said. "Is that true?"
"No, I don't like most things," Letterman replied. "When you have your own show, you have plenty of time to talk about whatever you want to talk about anyway, so you don't need to travel."
In response to an inquiry as to how fatherhood has changed him, Letterman said that son Harry, 3½, has made a "huge difference" in his life and that being a parent is "ideal" for him, but that the toddler doesn't always understand his daddy's sense of humor.
"Mommy has to tell him a lot that I'm just teasing," the 60-year-old funnyman said.
Parenting isn't always easy, though, Letterman continued. "It is the constant razor's edge—do you make your point with patience or discipline," he mused, adding that Harry was placed on the "naughty chair" over the weekend for misbehaving.
"He's still there," Letterman deadpanned.
In addition to the heart-to-heart that ensued at the WaMu Theater in Madison Square Garden, where Winfrey's Chicago-based show is on location this week, Letterman brought along one of his signature Top 10 lists, this one expounding on the reasons why he loves Oprah:
10. She smells great.
9. Without her, we would never have known that quack Dr. Phil.
8. She helped me start my wildly popular "D" magazine.
7. We're yoga buddies.
6. Oprah's incredibly busy, yet she still finds time to ignore my calls.
5. She agreed to validate my parking.
4. Taught me how to launder money in the Cayman Islands.
3. Any time I'm in Chicago, she lets me crash on her couch.
2. Oprah gave me my first postsurgery sponge bath.
1. She's giving everybody in today's audience a new house.
Letterman last granted a TV interview in 2002, to Ted Koppel's Nightline spinoff, Nightline Up Close.
Appearing on Good Morning America earlier Monday, Winfrey said she would try to make the famously private Letterman as comfortable as possible.
"I hear he's a little nervous," she said. "That's why he doesn't like to see these interviews. It's often true that people who are in control of the mike don't like being on the other side of it."
Meanwhile, the famously public Winfrey hosted a star-studded fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama at her sprawling estate near Santa Barbara, Calif., on Saturday. Tickets cost $2,300 apiece, and the event brought in more than $3 million for the Illinois senator's campaign.
Stevie Wonder performed at the soiree, whose guests included Will Smith, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Sidney Poitier, Forest Whitaker, Chris Rock, Cindy Crawford, Jimmy Connors, Linda Evans and Dennis Haysbert.