Blink

If It’s on ‘Oprah,’ It’s Gotta Be … True?

April 3, 2008 5:29 PM

The video hit the Web last week: An ABC News broadcast segment examined an article in the Advocate about a man who claimed to be pregnant.

The rampant speculation on the veracity of the claim came to a screeching halt today when Thomas Beatie appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the undisputed arbiter of truth and bejeweled floaty tops.

Mr. Beatie, an Oregon man, claims he became pregnant after Danny DeVito implanted him with embryos as part of a fertility research project.

Kidding! Mr. Beatie is a female-to-male transsexual legally married to a woman. After his wife’s hysterectomy, he made the decision to stop testosterone treatments and begin in-vitro, and he now is carrying a child.

This is a huge milestone… Not so much for science, but for “Oprah,” which took a break from its book clubs and panini-press giveaways to get back to its trashy roots. The potential “I’m a Pregnant Man” Chyron hearkens back to the days before Oprah reinvented herself, when she was inviting the same “My Two Adoptive Dads Are in the Klan” guests as Ricki, Phil and Sally Jesse.

Is Mr. Beatie’s appearance the harbinger of a backslide into tabloid TV? Based on the decidedly un-salacious upcoming guest roster—Dr. Oz and Suze Orman—it doesn’t look that way.

Unless the lower-thirds read “I’m Obsessed With the Shape of My Feces” and “I’m a Lesbian Addicted to Leopard Print.”

Clip below.

— Julieanne Smolinski