- Now let me ask you all this.
Have you ever made a complete fool
of yourself over a celebrity?
[APPLAUSE]
I have.
I've never shared this story with you,
but today I feel I have to let it out.
It was 1973 or 4.
I was 19 or 20, I can't quite remember,
but I was working in Nashville.
And I had this obsession, I mean obsession, with Neil Diamond.
[APPLAUSE]
I would wake up in the morning playing songs all, [INAUDIBLE]..
And I would go to bed to "Cracklin Rosie," which is not
an easy thing to do in high school
because I could have lost my Negro membership card.
There were not a lot of Negros singing "Cracklin Rosie."
But, OK, so I'm working in television
at this television station.
And there was some kind of benefit
and Neil Diamond was there because he
was performing in town.
And so I'm in the green room and I am, by the time, 1973,
I'm already an anchor woman on TV.
And so, I walk into the green room and there he is.
And so I say, Mr. Diamond, would you like some shrimp?
[LAUGHTER]
And he says, yes, yes, I'll take a shrimp.
And he took a shrimp.
And I was like, OK.
[LAUGHTER]
And then he moved across the room.
And then I followed him across the room.
That's a big mistake.
That's the big mistake people make.
So I follow him across the room.
And so I'm like, would you like another shrimp?
[LAUGHTER]
And he said, yeah, I'll take a shrimp.
He did.
And then I followed him again.
I'm just staring at him across the room.
And finally, I walked up and he goes, enough already.
[LAUGHTER]
Enough already.
OK, so that was my Neil Diamond moment.
[APPLAUSE]
And there is always that thing that when you are celebrity
obsessed you think, if I had not just said it that last time he
probably would have said, oh, Oprah, you are what I've
been waiting for all my life.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, that didn't happen.
And this is my first time ever seeing him since that moment.
Yes.
Neil Diamond has a new CD that's all the buzz
and it is 53rd album.
He's sold over 120 million records
and he sells out stadiums around the world.
Neil Diamond songs are the soundtracks to our lives.
And for the first time on this show, Neil Diamond,
would you like some shrimp?
[APPLAUSE]
You we're saying to me when I came over you've
never heard my shrimp story.
I said, you never heard it because I never told it.
It's one of those embarrassing, embarrassing things.
And I know you must--
you have fans walking around googling over you all the time.
Right.
Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
I must say, you were very nice for me
for the first and second time.
But by the third time, I knew you meant enough already.
Yes.
You know, for years I've been telling
that story about a girl who followed
me around with a bag of shrimp.
[LAUGHTER]
I had no idea it was you.