My tale of Puzder’s 'Oprah' tape

Andrew Puzder didn’t want the tape to resurface. Oprah Winfrey fought efforts to obtain it.

It was a high-profile domestic violence victim from the 1980s going public with the video that eventually led to the first — and possibly only — Trump Cabinet nominee to pull out under pressure.


My search for Puzder’s “Oprah” tape spanned more than two months, two coasts and hours spent digging through at least 90 episodes buried in an archive for more than 25 years. The hunt ended Tuesday with the discovery of the videotape in a private collection less than an hour from the White House.

From the start, Puzder acknowledged the allegations of spousal abuse that contributed to his withdrawal Wednesday from consideration to be Labor secretary. He has always denied the allegations, and he and his former wife, Lisa Fierstein, went to great lengths to downplay them during the nomination process. Fierstein first recanted the charges in 1990 as part of a custody agreement. But Fierstein's 1990 appearance on “Oprah,” just months before she first withdrew her allegations, was a powerful reminder that she once told a different story.

Fierstein's appearance on the show only came to light in December, while I was digging through court records of Puzder’s 1987 divorce.

A local newspaper reported at the time that the court records included Fierstein’s abuse allegations. The day after the nomination, some of those divorce records were sealed at Puzder’s request. While I was reporting on the records, one lawyer mentioned offhand that someone told him Fierstein had appeared on “Oprah” to talk about the abuse allegations. Eventually one of Fierstein’s friends who had seen the tape confirmed that she had appeared. She also disclosed a crucial detail: that Fierstein had appeared in disguise, using an assumed name.

An effort to reach Fierstein led to a phone call from George Thompson, Puzder and Fierstein’s spokesman, who confirmed that Fierstein had appeared on the show.

All that was known was that Fierstein had appeared on an episode focused on domestic abuse that aired in the 1980s or 1990s. The Oprah Winfrey Network, which retained rights to the show, declined to release old episodes or help research when it might have aired.

A television archive at UCLA, which had an incomplete collection of “Oprah” episodes, was the next place to look. A days-long search guided by 30-year-old TV listings led to a screening of episodes, many of them about abuse, that ended without finding the tape.

But then, Fierstein herself provided a clue. In a letter she wrote to the Senate downplaying her reasons for appearing on the show, Fierstein made it clear the episode aired after the public reports of her allegations, which narrowed the time frame to just two possible years.

Another search through newspaper archives from 1990 identified an episode titled “High Class Battered Women,” but UCLA did not have the tape. Efforts to locate a copy through former employees of Oprah’s production company were fruitless, with none able to recall the episode.

On Monday, Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, told reporters she’d seen the tape. In fact, the Oprah Winfrey Network had provided it to the Senate on the condition that it not be made public. But Capitol Hill sources confirmed that the episode was, indeed, “High Class Battered Women.”

Eventually, one source who recalled the episode said that it had also featured Charlotte Fedders, a victim of domestic violence whose former husband was forced to resign as the head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission after The Wall Street Journal wrote about her charges in the 1980s.

Fedders, whose sister lives in Ellicott City, Maryland, and still has a copy of the tape, agreed to provide it.

“I totally believe that it happened,” Fedders said. “I believe that she was abused.”

That just left us looking for a VCR.