Across 90 minutes with Oprah Winfrey, Lance Armstrong did more than admit he cheated to win his seven Tour de France titles. He revealed a measure of the man that he is and this much is certain: If you never met this jerk, well, count your blessings.

Defiant, distant, difficult.

Arrogant, unaware, flippant.

Oh, Lance had a plan to try to look open and honest, and that was what was so obvious: It was a plan. It sounded rehearsed. But when he went off script, well, that's when he went off the rails.

He apologized, and that's worth something, worth a lot to those of us who aren't outraged anymore over doping in sports. But in doing so, in tuning into the Oprah Winfrey Network, you could only marvel at that personality on display, the same one that while we celebrated his victories was, behind the scenes, leaving a path of personal destruction in its wake.

This was a glimmer of the true Lance Armstrong coming out. No Nike commercial edits. No press conference sound bites. No glowing magazine profiles. This was the guy who left scores and scores of people cursing that their paths ever crossed.

It's not about the bike, indeed. This was about Lance's sociopathic spectacle.

At one point during the interview, he couldn't recall how many people he'd sued. Really. He not only didn't know the number, he couldn't even be sure when asked about specific individuals that his mighty, powerful legal team relentlessly tried to bury.

It's worth noting that many of the people he's sued through the years in an effort to protect his lies and glory were one-time close friends, roommates, teammates, business partners and associates.

View photos

Is there another person in America who has sued so many people he once liked – for telling the truth, mind you – that he can't remember all of them? Anyone?

What you and your bank account and those sleepless nights you can't forget -- he can't remember.

Good Lord, what a guy.

At one point Armstrong addressed Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate Frankie Andreu, who testified that while lying in a hospital bed in 1996 Armstrong told his doctor that he had doped.

Over the years Lance and his henchman bullied and bruised Betsy relentlessly. They called her names. They tried to wipe her out. They, according to Betsy, blackballed her husband's career. She kept standing up and speaking out. There was even a voicemail from an Armstrong associate who said she hoped "somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head."

Lance knows he was terrible to Betsy so he said he called her the other day to begin making amends. You know for, among other things, calling her "crazy." He decided to tell Oprah about it, including what is apparently his idea of a sense of humor.

"I did call her crazy," he said. "I did. I did … I think she'd be OK with me saying this, I said, 'Listen, I called you crazy; I called you a bitch; I called you all of these things, but I never called you fat.' "

[Related: Lance Armstrong's admission could hurt cycling's Olympics future]

Then he smirked.

Now that's a novel way to gain forgiveness: make a fat joke about a woman on national television.

Needless to say, Betsy wasn't OK with him saying it.

"I guess we know why I was [a bitch] all these years, putting up with that," Betsy said on CNN on Thursday night after watching the clip. "How was I supposed to act? Sweet as apple pie? … That exchange right there, it has me furious."

Story continues