Though Tommy and Rae Dawn Chong share the same last name, most fans never knew that “Squeak” from The Color Purple a.k.a. “Harpo’s” high pitched voiced wife- was related to Tommy. She and her Pops are very close though…so close, that he defended her controversial bashing of her Color Purple co-star, Oprah Winfrey.
A few years ago, Rae caught major flack for the way she dragged Oprah Winfrey in on Matty P’s Radio Happy Hour internet radio show, as she recalled the tension between them and she took several low blows.
NOW See Why She Called Oprah A “House Ni&&er”
“Miss Sofia” & “Squeaky” Had Beef Real Life?…
Rae Dawn Chong said everything was all good between her and Oprah Winfrey while filming the 1985 classic, The Color Purple, but that Oprah turned into a “total bee-yotch” after Rae filmed her next big movie, Commando, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger- also released in ’85:
“I starred in Commando. And she just wasn’t having me. She’s competitive. She didn’t like me. She just wasn’t having me.”
During her slamming of Oprah, she called her everything from a “brown noser,” to a “fat chick” who would have been a “field nigger” instead of a house nigger during slavery…
– “If you look at the way [Oprah] looks, she looks like 60 years ago she would have been a house keeper luckily. She would have not been a house n**ger she would have been a field n**ger.”
– “She’s so enormously insecure. If you wanna distill Oprah Winfrey down to like her most basic components. She wants to be beautiful.”
-“Imagine being [Oprah]. She has all of the world. All the power in the world … and she only wants something that is only chemical, purely impossible.”
That Ain’t All She Had To Say Though
Rae Dawn Chong continued with more jabs…
– “The thing that’s really great about Oprah that you can’t take away from her, is that she’s a great brown-noser. … If you were in a room with her, she would pick the most powerful person and she’ll become best friends with them.”
– “When we worked with her the one thing about Oprah, she was that fat chick that was the wannabe cheerleader in school, that was the student council president that was best friends with the principal.”
Rae also gave Oprah a nice-nasty compliment for being a self-made mogul:
“No matter how vile she is, you kinda gotta go, ‘hello hats off’ like, you’ve done an amazing thing you have actually shifted the DNA of the universe.”
After Backlash, Rae ‘Clarified’ Her Comments…
Following the backlash, Rae Dawn and her Pops spoke out in her defense and to offer further clarity into why she went at Oprah so hard.
In a now private Youtube response, Rae said she “regrets” some of her remarks about Oprah, but not all of them:
R.D. Chong: “I told my story about my experiences with O… Will I have to live under armed guard for ten years because of this? You know people think I just sat back and called O a bunch of ugly names and blasted her just because? It just isn’t true.”
Tommy Chong’s Response…
Tommy Chong also said his daughter’s statements were “taken out of context”:
“If you think of what [Rae Dawn] said, she said back in the day Oprah would be working in the field because she’s not that beautiful…whereas if you’re beautiful, you’re part of the master’s bedroom,” stated Tommy Chong.
Moral of the story: Don’t say something you may regret later…unless you’re bold enough to stand by it, no matter the consequences.
