Oprah apologizes to Robin Givens
Host offers apology 'to you and every woman who's ever been hit'
November 16, 2009, 10:55 a.m.
STAFF REPORT
Oprah Winfrey apologized to Robin Givens on Friday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" over how she handled a comment last month made by the star's ex-husband, former boxer Mike Tyson.
"I was really hurt, really, really hurt," Givens told Winfrey of the TV show host's and her audience's reaction to the boxer's "Oprah" show comments in October about the actress' 1998 Barbara Walters interview.
Tyson previously claimed on Oprah's show that Givens lied during the interview and he added, "At that particular moment, I truly wanted to sock her, but I didn't do it," as the "Oprah" audience laughed.
Givens, a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said the reaction was difficult to take.
"I just wanted you ... when he said 'I've socked her before,' to say, 'That's not right!' And it wasn't right and it was painful," Givens said. "There are so many women like me out there ... if you hear laughter about it, it lightens it."
Although Winfrey tried to explain what the mood was like that day in her studio, she apologized to Givens for what happened.
"In that moment, I didn't know - the audience laughed because they were uncomfortable, and the word 'sock,' you think of a cartoon character, they weren't laughing at you," Winfrey responded. "I should have said something, 'This isn't funny.' I regretted ... that moment. To you and every woman who's ever been hit, I feel that I did not handle that as well as I should have - I apologize to you, and to every woman in that situation, for not being sharp enough."