Vogue editrix Anna Wintour is a fearsome beast who rules the fashion publishing world with an iron fist. She’s sartorial Stalin in oversize sunglasses and a severe bob.
So when she tells you to lose 20 pounds, you do it — even when you’re Oprah:
Wintour had told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998, the editor revealed during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview on Sunday.
“It was a very gentle suggestion,” she said, laughing. “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight.”
She added: “I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!”
Winfrey, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend. She was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: “Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover.”
“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet,” Wintour said. “And it was one of our most successful covers ever.”
Ignoring the fact that Oprah’s crash diet obviously failed her in the long run, Wintour then goes on a rant about how everyone’s obsessed with anorexia and no one thinks of obesity, even describing Minnesota as a place “where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses.”
But apparently her fat phobia bends with the wind. A few months ago, in Vogue’s annual Shape Issue, Anna Wintour was all up on British singer Adele’s jock. Adele happens to be a size 20, but perhaps because she had just won the Grammy for Best New Artist, she wasn’t instructed to diet down before Vogue would do a fashion spread on her. This is because Anna Wintour is a dinosaur, and to tell a hot young singer that she is too fat to be fashionable would likely result in a very public snub — something stodgy old Vogue cannot afford.
I mean, why do a Shape Issue at all if you are asking your cover girls to drop and give you 20?
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I don’t even see why one’s weight is such an object of fascination, outside of the health spectrum, atleast. I mean, who the hell is this freak with the ass-hat hair to tell Oprah how to look?
That bob isn’t severe, it’s intense. I saw part of the 60 Minutes interview and I don’t remeber seeing her face because of the do.
That said Vogue doing a shape issue is equivalent to Nazis (instantly lost thread, I brought up the Nazis) celebrating Hanukah.
What a bitch. I live in Minnesota and we don’t have any more fat people than anyone else.
I didn’t know who Adele was, but I just looked up pictures of her and I’d rather look like her than a stringy old hag like Anna Wintour.
You know what? I say put Stick Lady and Big Rock Candy Mountain in a cage and let them fight it out. Twenty bucks says the second Wintour’s down, Oprah eats her.
I have always loved how the Skeletors of the world tell us how to live and look.
Screw you stick bitch!
That mindset that Skeletora has is brought on by a deficiency…….the total lack of food.
Curves rule. What good is grabbing a holding onto a chick if there is nothing to hold onto? Some of us just come with more to love is all. Go way skinny girls who like to tell the rest of us how to live.
And Adele rocks! I would rather listen to her sing and look at her rather than Amy Whinehouse.
Since we cater to a mostly female clientele we get lots, and lots of magazines for free. I guess they want you to see the ads. Anyway, we just got our first “Vogue” and I didn’t know it was still around. I for real thought it was some mythical magazine from like the 70’s or something. I can just see it now. Porno, big mustaches, Twiggy…. I guess cuz I’m a guy. Who reads magazines anymore? And I guess I could stand to lose some weight. My abs are like granite after all and must weigh a ton. Never mind my huge brain. I’d like to challenge Anna Wintour to a fight right now.
Take that Stedman Graham!
The Devil Wears Pretense.
Isn’t that ‘Edna’ from ‘The Incredibles’?
Pasta, Vogue *is* a mythical magazine. When you try to sell Gisele Bunchen as “curvy” and tell your readers that being a recessionista means only buying one $3000 skirt instead of three, you live in Fantasyland with the nymphs and unicorns.
@RNB: NO CAPES!
i think i’d cry then kill myself if anna wintour told me to lose 20 lbs, but that could be the eating disorder talking.
Whoa, I think I’ve seen Anna before… in that nightmare I had when I was seven about the skeletons trying to devour my soul for eating a piece of cake.
Hmmm. Adele is wonderful, but largely (ho ho!) because of her voice, rather than her physical appearance.
Before I go any further on my drunken rant, I feel I should point out that Adele is a British size 20, which is (I think) about 4 sizes larger than an American 20. Anyway, that’s probably irrelevant, but I suppose I should get back to the point here. Fashion magazines always leave me feeling crappy about myself no matter what the special ‘angle’ of the feature, so yes, picking on Oprah and effectively ignoring Adele’s weight is disgustingly hypocritical.
Maybe it’s something to do with the fact British people have full fat milk in their tea. I should really stop getting excited when British people are on Deceiver.
And finally, anyone who thinks that ANY comment about a woman’s weight will be taken as ‘a gentle suggestion’ must be taking the pee.
She has the same lemon-sucking, miserable look on her face that all these anorexic bitches have. Hey Anna, have a cheeseburger, a Coke and a smile, honey!
Anna Wintour is cranky because she’s hungry. She probably exists on the supermodel carrot sticks and air diet.
Have a sandwich, even two! And maybe then I won’t try to grate cheese on your clavicle.
anna wintour seems like such a.. well i won’t say what i was going to but she seems like a twat. there i was nicer! and i don’t like vogue magazine either.
You’re all right. It is totally wrong to judge women on their appearance in any way, shape, or form. That’s just shallow. However, fuck Anna Wintour for being all skinny and ugly! Because… well…
Wait, the Petards are afraid of Oprah but the editor of a “magazine” that is 80% ads, costs like $12 an issue, and that no one reads anymore will take the O on? Color me surprised.
Y’all, Wintour is probably STILL all bloated and full from those two stamps she licked last month.
Right on C.
Huh.
So Oprah dined on pickle juice and certs for months to earn the cover of Vogue?
Holy Jehosepaht.
I wanna be rich enough to forget that I own an eponymous magazine.
Too true, C. Thanks for the hypocrisy head-check.
And Minnow, why is Oprah always on the cover of her “eponymous magazine”? They couldn’t get anyone else?
MC Mom – Oprah probably never would approve anyone else to appear, unless they have the last name of Obama. Nobody else’s ego is big enough for Oprah
I’m gonna go with the Martha Stewart theory.
Waaaayyyyy back when Living first started up, somehow I got on the free-subscription-forever list. Don’t ask me; I didn’t want it; never paid for it; hardly read it; but I got like 4 years worth before the dumb-clucks in subscriptions figured it out.
Anyways… ’bout 3 years after it premiered, they ran a blurb in the Feedback section that went something like this:
Now maybe I’m exagerating slightly on the stats, but I vividly recall the “Okay we get it!” part.
One tends to remember anything that sends Leinenkugel’s six directions out your nostrils.
I hate this woman…because she makes me like PeTA…well, at least, on an occasion like this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9651212/
This link doesn’t always work…if it doesn’t work, I’m referring to a tofu pie to Wintour’s face thrown by some petard a while ago.
I haven’t been able to visit Deceiver much lately, and I’ve missed your comments, Nati!
Great post! Anna Wintour needs to eat some pie. Some of Oprah’s pie would be great.
Minnow, I get that covers of Living sell a bajillion times better with Martha on the cover than with, say, curtains and an impressive coconut cream pie.
But unless they tried an issue of O with a cover showing Dr. Phil or some Cheetos and it only sold 5 copies, I still don’t get why Ms. W has to be on the cover of every issue. I think I’ll go with AAW’s explanation.
Miss Wintour does not have the figure nor posture to carry off the attire she chooses to wear. She looks sloppy.