Gayle King Reveals The Origin Of Oprah’s Iconic ‘You Get A Car!’ Giveaway
29.01.2022 - 01:03
/ etcanada.com
Of all the memorable moments to occur on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, arguably the most iconic was when host Oprah Winfrey gave away a free automobile to each member of the studio audience, with her much-mocked refrain, “You get a car! And you get a car!”
Winfrey’s best friend Gayle King sat down for the inaugural edition of People‘s “Pop Cultured”, and revealed that she actually had a little something to do with the legendary 2004 giveaway.
“I was at an airport, minding my own business. A guy walks up to me — and I’ll call him Larry — [and said,] ‘We’re really interested in giving a car to the show,'” King recalled.
READ MORE: Oprah Meets Gayle King’s Grandson With A Big ‘Lion King’ Welcome
“I said, ‘Oh, okay. That’s nice.’ He said, ‘No, no, we’re interested in giving a car to everyone in the audience,'” she continued. “At that point, I put down my suitcase and went, ‘What did you say?’ He said, ‘We’ve been trying, and we can’t get anyone to return our calls.’ Well, why would they return a call because it just sounded so far-fetched?” King recalled.
“But there was something about him… that I believed him,” she added.
Once King was able to connect “Larry” with Winfrey’s producers, she explained, “from there, then the question became, how do we execute it?”
A part of that was to ensure every detail was just so, something Winfrey took a hands-on approach to.
READ MORE: Oprah Winfrey And Gayle King Hit The Road For New Series 15 Years After Their Famous Cross-Country Trek
“She wanted to make sure that every car had a bow, and not just a regular bow — it had to be an oversized jumbo red bow,” said King. “I remember her looking at different shades of red to make sure it was the right shade of red. It was a whole big