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Rae Dawn Chong: “Oprah Winfrey Would Have Been a Field N----r”

O’s "Color Purple" co-star calls her “a great brown-noser” and “enormously insecure.”

Oprah Winfrey has gotten some words of ill will from, of all people, her former The Color Purple co-star Rae Dawn Chong. The actress appeared on a popular radio show and criticized the media mogul for being self-centered, even going so far as to comment on what kind of slave Winfrey would be back in that era.

In an interview on the Matty P's Radio Happy Hour, Chong talked talked about her personal relationship with Winfrey. According to the actress, who is the daughter of veteran comedian Tommy Chong, Winfrey was friendly to her while filming the 1985 classic The Color Purple. But after Chong landed the role in the hugely successful ‘80s action film Commando, Oprah was less than friendly. "I starred in Commando,” Chong explained. “And she just wasn’t having me. She’s competitive. She didn’t like me. She just wasn’t having me."

Taking her observations of Winfrey back to the era when African-Americans were slaves, Chong gave her perspective of what prototypical servant the former talk show queen would be. "If you look at the way [Oprah] looks,” she said, “she looks like 60 years ago she would have been a house keeper, luckily. She would have not been a house n----r she would have been a field n----r."

In Chong’s perspective, Winfrey simply “wants to be beautiful." "She has all of the world. All the power in the world," Chong continued, “... and she only wants something that is only chemical, purely impossible."

If any one has watched The Color Purple, Chong’s criticism of Oprah is eerily similar to the way she interacted with the OWN CEO in the film (right before Chong was punched out). No word yet on any response from Oprah.  

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(Photos from left: Evan Agostini/Getty Images, Paul Marotta/Getty Images)

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