BuzzFeed Sports has acquired the following exclusive preview of the Oprah Winfrey-Lance Armstrong interview that will air tomorrow.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT, OWN NETWORK, INTERVIEW #6754.
AIR DATE: 1/17/13 (part 1) and 1/18/13 (part 2)
SLUG: LANCE ARMSTRONG COMES CLEAN
Oprah: Lance, thank you for being here. Thank you for showing the courage to be here.
Lance Armstrong: Thank you, Oprah.
OW: Let's get right to the heart of it. Right to what everyone wants to know — have you ever, during the course of your twenty-plus-year career in cycling, knowingly used performance-enhancing DRUUUUUUUUU-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGS?!?!?
[audience applauds wildly]
LA: Can I first — I have a statement I'd like to read.
OW: You seem shaken.
LA: This is emotional for me. I'd like to read a statement, if I could.
OW: Of course. Take your time. This is hard.
LA: To the employees of Livestrong, my fans, and fans of cycling. While I am disappointed by recent events, today marks the start of a new era in the career of Lance Armstrong and my new not not-for-profit foundation, LanceArmstrongStrong. All the money collected by LanceArmstrongStrong will go towards the fight against homelessness as it pertains to Lance Armstrong.
OW: This is not what I was expecting.
LA: [holds up a shriveled coin purse] LanceArmstrongStrong will be distributing these LanceArmstrongStrong pouches, which are recreations of my amputated testicle, and all proceeds will go the LanceArmstrongStrong Foundation for Lance Armstrong.
OW: That's quite unusual.
LA: Well, it's one-third scale. This isn't actual size. These were made by the same company that makes rubber vaginas and to make it actual size, as far as the current rates for Taiwanese freight, would...
OW: That's not what I meant by "unusual." [sighs] Let's bring out a friend of mine, who as a fellow Texan, can hopefully get through to you. Please welcome, Dr. PHIIII-IIIIIIIIIIIIL!!!!!
[audience begins to riot]
[trapdoor in the floor swings open and Dr. Phil rises from the blackness in a cloud of dry ice]
Dr. Phil: Lance, Lance, Lance, Lance...
LA: Dr. Phil.
DP: Lance, let me ask you something.
LA: Shoot.
DP: You ever hear that saying about how in the summer heat out in the Texas panhandle a jackrabbit'll burrow down deep in the ground to get away from hot ol' sun and as it burrows down and makes its warrens in the deep, dark earth it'll begin to molt, know what I mean, and shed all that fur and down there in the blackness it'll find a mate and they'll roll around and make little jackrabbits, rolling and turning in the dusky warrens until the sun goes down and then he'll come up into the Texas night and look around and think "what'm I doin' with my life in these deep, dark holes, coming up at night for food? How's that workin' for me?" and he'll bound across the dew-drop fields and chew on plants and drop his little fecal pellets all around the...
[Oprah rises and tasers Dr. Phil in the neck]
[audience applauds as Dr. Phil is dragged offstage by Stedman]
OW: Lance, I can't help but feel like Phil was on to something. I can't let you off the hook. For years now you've been adamant that you have never used PEDs. When journalists and whistle-blowers would surface and attempt to link you to performance enhancers, you would go out of your way to discredit and destroy them. Now, after all your old teammates have turned on you, and in the wake of an exhaustive investigation by the USADA, are you ready to come clean?
LA: I am, Oprah. [takes a deep breath] I would also like to announce that I'm sorry.
OW: For what?
LA: Just in general. For stuff. For instance, I inspired Sheryl Crow to write at least one song. That's pretty bad, and I'm sorry for that. Sorry that happened. But I'm a survivor; that's how I inspire people. I survived the cancer that burst out of my balls and I was able to do that because of my will and the medicines doctors gave me. Yes, medicines. Did I use PEDs? Cycling is an ultra-competitive sport, Oprah. It's filled with self-centered egomaniacs who do anything and take anything to win; who relish ruining people as a matter of course; and who have no compunction about turning on those closest to them if doing so can at all benefit them. But there's a dark side to the sport too, Oprah. You want me to name the performance enhancers I've supposedly taken? Listen, I'd drink donkey urine if I thought it would help me win and I don't mean just because donkey urine is a very effective masking agent, or so I've heard. So, yes, I took things to help me compete with all the other dirtbags; I call those things medicines.
OW: Well, that's a start, I guess.
[polite applause]
LA: It is; it's a brand new start. That's what my new foundation LanceArmstrongStrong is all about — fresh starts.
OW: Lance, getting back to the perfo...
LA: My new foundation? [holds up shriveled pouch] The LanceArmstrongStrong foundation to support Lance Armstrong is a not not-for profit —
OW: Not for profit?
LA: Not.
OW: Not FOR profit...
LA: Not...not.
OW: Just to be clear, do you or you do not profit from LanceArmstrongStrong?
LA: Exactly.
OW: Lance, again, I can't help but feel like you're not being one-hundred percent truthful.
LA: What good has the truth ever done, Oprah? Can you inspire people with the truth? Maybe, but can you inspire millions of people with the truth? In my opinion, you can't.
OW: I...
LA: Jodie Foster is gay.
------END PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT------
What a strange direction this story seems to have taken! We'll let you know more as we hear it.