Pius Princewill
Oprah made a powerhouse psychologist, and she also made America’s direct-to-TV doctor. “I grabbed a bunch of organs in an Igloo cooler,” Dr. Mehmet Oz told Mediabistro of his first interview, adding, “And I walked onto the set, put on my $14 cotton scrubs to keep my clothes clean, and appeared on the Oprah show.” But the doctor initially had no intentions of being on any big screens, until he realized the power that media could have on medicine. “America wasn’t getting the message, because American medicine wasn’t giving it to them,” he said. “And I wanted to change that.”
Naturally, his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show was a discussion on an extremely important topic — passing gas. The now famous doc admits that he was pretty naive when it came to first stepping foot on set. “I think, actually, that’s why it worked,” he told Fox 35 Orlando. “Because if I had been really aware of what a big deal it was to go on the Oprah show, I don’t think the relationship would have worked.”
Fortunately, it did work for the embarrassingly honest, scrub-wearing star. Winfrey loved him so much that he appeared on her show regularly for five years before leading him to a series of his own, The Dr. Oz Show (via Oprah.com).
“It has changed my life,” Dr. Oz told Mediabistro. “Because I was able to attend the Oprah Winfrey University.” Free tuition, too.
Written by: Nicki
