Oprah Winfrey: She's Not a Kennedy, But...

Talk show queen's unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley tells us about the day the two met

Oprah Winfrey has actually met Kitty Kelley, the author of that new unauthorized biography of the talk-show titan.

At least that's what Kelley told me earlier today at a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Fran Drescher's Cancer Schmancer Foundation.

The two came face-to-face back in 1981…

Kelley was a guest on the Baltimore talk show cohosted by Winfrey to promote her then-new biography of Elizabeth Taylor. "She was very standoffish and I didn't understand why," Kelley said while signing books at the Regency Club.

"Her cohost is the one who interviewed me," she continued. "We had a very lively exchange and then he bounced over to Oprah and said, 'Wasn't that great?' She folded her arms and said, 'I don't approve of those books…She wrote a book about my relatives.' "

Kelley said everyone around them didn't understand what she meant, until a producer explained what she was referring to. "The producer said, 'Oprah is very close to Maria Shriver, and she thinks she's a member of the Kennedy family.' The only biography I had written before Elizabeth Taylor was on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis."

A rep for Winfrey declined to comment.

Kelly says that she has enough material not included in the 544-page Oprah bio to publish a second volume. She says she has 2,763 files on Oprah. She's also written unauthorized bios on Frank Sinatra, the Bush political dynasty and Great Britain's royal family, among others. "I submit my manuscripts to four sets of lawyers," she said. "So whatever anyone says about 'Kitty Kelly and these books she writes,' they should know I've never ever been sued."

This afternoon's fundraiser included a conversation between Kelly and—of all people—Kathy Griffin.

"My first question for you Kitty, who I've wanted to meet my whole life and have read every book, is where do you get your balls?" Griffin cracked. "Because she's got a set of brass ones like you've never seen."