(NOTE: the picture in the headline is an artists depiction of what this story would look like if it was awesome, as opposed to gross)

If there’s one thing that all straight women love, it’s camping, so no wonder Oprah Winfrey and her longtime companion Gayle King went camping this weekend in Yosemite. Why else would they go off together?

(Radar has learned Winfrey and King) were spotted at an REI store Friday morning in Fresno, California shopping for camping supplies on their way up to Yosemite National Park.
“I didn’t think Oprah was the type to do tents but her and Gayle scooped up all sorts of supplies,” (a source) said.
“They bought sleeping bags, lawn chairs, water bottles and fanny packs too.”
Oprah had her crew from The Oprah Winfrey Show documenting her trip with Gayle over the weekend … it should air later in October.

Why won’t this bitch just admit that she’s gay? It’s actually really insulting. No one cares anymore if someone is gay or not. It would only matter if you’re my friend Greg and you’ve texted me twice today because you wanna come out of the closet, in which case you need to just keep that shit to yourself.

Oprah Winfrey has been ridiculed in the past for her “My Favorite Things” episodes, where she gives her studio audience extravagant gifts, because, among other reasons, they still have to pay taxes on those gifts, the most famous example being the $7,000 they had to pay on a new car.

But this year she’s planning ahead. She’s bringing over 300 members of her audience and staff to Australia for 8 days, and to make sure no one can make fun of her this time, she’s paying everyone’s tax bill too. E! says…

To avoid the messy fallout from her 2004 (car) giveaway, Winfrey reportedly had a certified public accountant on hand after Monday’s 25th and final season premiere, informing the future travelers that the Oprah show would, quite unlike the last time, be paying every last cent of tax, excess fines, baggage costs, passport fees and pretty much any other unexpected expense the vacation may have in store for the audience.

Let’s just put our cards on the table here: I’m not very smart. I’ve actually been told that buzznet gets money from the government for employing me, but isn’t her paying the taxes also a gift? If she gave them money but no trip, that would be a gift. So isn’t money and a trip just two gifts? And so now the audience has to pay taxes on both those things, right?

Jesus, it’s like Oprah has declared psychological warfare on her audience, just to see how fucking crazy she can drive them. Has this show been awesome the whole time and I just never realized it?

SELF SERVING UPDATE – Aww I fuckin knew it! Ruggedly handsome reader Brendan says: “You are 100% right. Paying someone’s tax debt is just like giving them cash, which is of course taxable. This creates a loop of “tax on tax” (see Old Colony Trust). If Oprah really promised to “be paying every last cent of tax,” then she must pay their taxes, then their taxes upon receiving her anti-tax gift, then the taxes on *that* gift, and on and on forever. Since each tax payment is smaller than the last, she isn’t promising infinite money. She is promising the gift value * n/(1-n), where n is their tax rate. (So if you assume their tax rate is 30%, paying the entire loop means she is paying .3/(1-.3) = 2.333 times the value of the gift in taxes, in addition to the gift.)”

Oprah Winfrey loves all the free press and adulation she gets when she has her big giveaway show and everyone in the audience gets some amazing gift. What she doesn’t love is being the one that pays for any of it.

Like when she gave away 276 Pontiac G6‘s. Pontiac paid for all that. Cost them 7 million dollars. And the audience had to pay the taxes (Daily Show report here). To her credit, this blog says she gave the audience $2500 to cover the taxes one year, but in that case, Oprah, who according to Forbes is the worlds 234th richest person with a net worth of $2.7 billion, still fucked them with a $5500 tax bill. And of course, they would presumably have to pay taxes on that $2500 as well. Oh she’s just an angel.

Well now it’s Oprahs final season, and for her premiere this week she gave her audience… an 8 day vacation to Australia!

OMG! How amazingly nice of Oprah the Australian people! They’re the first in line to get screwed by Oprah this year, because their tax dollars are helping to bankroll her narcissistic antics. Popeater says…

Oprah Winfrey announced this week that she’s taking a plane full of fans on a trip to Australia, where she’ll be taping several episodes of her talk show and shuttling her guests to various sights.

So Isla Fisher, Sophie Turner, S.I. model Natalie Mendoza, porn star Kiki Vidis, Miranda Kerr, Yvonne Strzechowski (the blond girl from ‘Chuck’), Holly Valance, Naomi Watts, Rose Byrne, Elle Macpherson, and Isabel Lucas came here, and Oprah is going there?

Wow Australia is really getting fucked in this deal.

…Australian taxpayers will help foot the bill, to the tune of $3 million, the nation’s tourism minister said.
“We spent hundreds of millions of dollars over 30 years without much effect, I must say that honestly,” he said. “The publicity that Oprah will bring to Australia around the world is something you couldn’t buy.”

There is literally no one on earth who pictures Australia as anything other than wonderful. Clean, beautiful, filled with friendly people and gorgeous women with sexy accents in bikinis on pristine sun kissed beaches. They might as well spend 3 million to advocate putting cowboy hats on puppies. These are things everyone already loves. It would be like Jessica Alba printing up a list of reasons for why you should let her blow you.

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