Big Girls Don’t Cry, Oprah

You can be the most important, influential woman in the entertainment universe, you can help elect a home-town guy to the presidency, but, unlike your male cohorts, when it comes to celebrating this triumph at the inaugural ball you face a hideous dilemma:

“I had a dress on the vision board,” Oprah Winfrey confesses, “but I’m not sure that’s going to fit. So I have to work on something else.” She adds mournfully, “I definitely wasn’t setting an example. I was talking the talk, but I wasn’t walking the walk. And that was very disappointing to me.”

A big guy can just wear a big tux (and he should follow Barack’s example and get a union-made Hart Schaffner Marx number for under a thou) but a woman who, like Oprah, has gained 40 pounds (and those of us who live with Winfrey in yo-yo diet land know just how easy this can be) has to deal with the sartorial consequences.

To which we say — Oprah darling, do not let this ruin your evening! Swath yourself in yards of black satin, have a ball at the ball, and then, like the rest of America, greet the new era by knocking off a few measly pounds.