Has daytime talk show queen Oprah Winfrey trained her sights on 20-year-old rapper Lucy Diamonds? The Louisville-based artist says she first came to the host’s attention after recording a song entitled “Sorry Right Number,” a celeb-trashing rant in the spirit of Eminem, which features the near-rhyming couplet, “Yeah I got drunk and I finger-fucked Oprah/ I’m sorry I’m rambling, why don’t we start over.”
Diamonds claims Winfrey got wind of the song and made her objections known through an assistant, but that the rapper, undeterred—and clearly sensing the PR value of such a spat—refused to back down. Instead, she recorded a follow up, “Sorry Right Number II.” A sampling:
“Now I received an email from Oprah’s assistant/ Saying my career would be over in an instant/ If I released that song and put the diss in/ Oh’ you rang the bell, bitch I thought you’d go the distance…I got a Hippo from Harpo whose appetite’s hungry/ Damn Oprah, don’t you have enough money?”
Diamond claims the resulting controversy was enough to garner her an exclusive deal with Apple to release the songs on iTunes—and a cease and desist letter from Winfrey’s attorneys. According to Diamonds, Oprah even “asked” Apple to back out of the agreement. Fearing, perhaps, an Hermès-style beatdown, the company complied without offering any explanation, she claims. Winfrey’s spokeswoman, Carly Ubersox, called Diamonds’ version of events “completely untrue,” saying that Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Inc., has “no record” of a cease and desist letter and that Oprah is not even aware of the rapper’s music. Diamonds claims she shares a close mutual friend with Winfrey, but would not elaborate. Apple reps did not return repeated calls and emails seeking comment.
UPDATE: Our super-sleuth friend, Bill Bastone of the Smoking Gun, refutes the cease and desist letter Diamonds claims she was sent by Oprah as a forgery. Confusing matters further, Diamonds posted Bastone’s emails online herself and continues to stand by her story. Is she an innocent victim? Or the perpetrator of a twisted (and, in all likelihood, actionable) guerrilla marketing campaign?