Oprah Winfrey's Lance Armstrong Doping Interview 'Emotional, Intense'
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey sat down with "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday to speak about the "emotional" interview she recently conducted with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who, in the interview, reportedly confesses to the use of performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France for seven consecutive years.
Winfrey told "CBS This Morning" that the interview was "difficult," but that ultimately she was satisfied with Armstrong's answers and felt that he was ready to answer questions regarding his doping scandal.
As CBS reports, Winfrey believes that Armstrong "did not come clean in the manner that I expected" and that it was "surprising to me [...] my team, all of us in the room, we were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers [...] I feel that he answered the questions in a way that he was ready."
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"I can only say I was satisfied by the answers," the media mogul said of the interview, which took place for hours Monday in Austin, Texas, where Lance Armstrong resides.
As far as why Armstrong has chosen to speak about the scandal now, Winfrey told CBS that she believes the athlete "was just, ready. I think the velocity of everything that's come at him in the past several months and the past several weeks, he was just ready."
Additionally, when asked if Winfrey believes Armstrong acted truly sorry for his apparent past doping, she said, "I choose not to characterize."
"I would rather people make their own decisions about whether he was contrite or not. I thought that he was thoughtful. I thought that he was serious […] I would say that he met the moment," Winfrey added.
Armstrong, 41, is a professional road cyclist who previously broke the record for consecutive wins at the Tour de France for seven years in a row.
In 2012, however, Armstrong was stripped of his victory titles when he was accused of using and distributing performance-enhancing drugs during his Tour de France races.
The two-night interview will air Thursday, Jan. 17 and Friday, Jan. 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on OWN, as well as streamed live worldwide on Oprah.com.
Watch Oprah Winfrey discuss her Lance Armstrong interview on CBS:
