Oprah says she's 'satisfied' with Lance Armstrong's answers

Oprah says she’s ‘satisfied’ with Lance Armstrong’s answers

By Meredith Blake

Jan. 15, 2013 12 AM PT

Oprah Winfrey paid a virtual visit to “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday to discuss her highly anticipated interview with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, in which he is rumored to partially confess to using performance-enhancing drugs -- an allegation he has vehemently and aggressively denied for the last decade.

Via satellite from Chicago, Winfrey spoke to anchors Gayle King, Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell about her 2½-hour Monday afternoon sitdown with Amstrong. She explained how she had feverishly prepared for the interview “like a college exam,” and had a list of 113 questions at the ready. “I didn’t get all the questions asked, but I think the most important questions and the answers that people around the world have been waiting to hear were answered,” Winfrey said.

Although she was “satisifed” by Armstrong’s responses, Winfrey confessed that “he did not come clean in the manner that I expected. It was surprising to me. I would say that for myself, my team, all of us in the room, we were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers.”

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She also said she’d prefer to leave it up to viewers to decide whether or not he was contrite, But that he was “thoughtful,” “serious,” and like her, very well-prepared. “At the end of it, 2½ — literally 2½ hours — we were both pretty exhausted,” Winfrey said.

As to the question of why Armstrong chose to come clean after so many years of denial, Winfrey speculated that the “velocity of everything that’s come out in the last several months, particularly in the past several weeks” had forced a change of heart. She also recounted at length the back story of the interview, explaining how she emailed Armstrong several months ago and later had a private meeting with him in Maui to work out the details.

Whatever Armstrong does or doesn’t say, the exclusive interview is certain to be a boon for Winfrey’s OWN Network, which has seen some ratings improvement but still has a long way to go. Now expanded to two nights, “Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive,” as the special episode of “Opran’s Next Chapter” has been dubbed, will air on OWN Thursday and Friday nights at 9 p.m., and will be streamed on Oprah.com

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