Oprah Winfrey Hated A Brad Pitt Horror Movie So Much That She Walked Out Of It

In the 1990s, few people had more sway over popular culture in the United States than Oprah Winfrey. She was the ultimate tastemaker whose book club and television series appearances had the ability to launch careers, but one horror movie was just a bit too bloody to get her blessing. 

The year was 1994. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt were both hot young superstars at the top of their game, starring in Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire," based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Anne Rice. The movie was mostly a hit with critics, but definitely not Oprah, who said that she walked out of a Los Angeles screening of the movie and even reconsidered having Cruise on her talk show! That's pretty wild — given that Tom Cruise would eventually almost implode his entire career by jumping up and down on Oprah's couch a decade later while promoting Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" — and it almost didn't happen because the talk show host got freaked out by what is now recognized as a gothic vampire classic. 

While speaking with Tom Cruise on her talk show (via The Orlando Sentinel), Oprah revealed her reasoning for leaving the theater during "Interview with the Vampire," saying: 

"I believe there are forces of light and darkness in the world, and I don't want to be a contributor to the force of darkness."

It would be pretty easy to make fun of Oprah for calling a movie about vampires "a force of darkness," but there are some elements of "Interview with the Vampire" that could be significantly more upsetting for certain audiences, especially Black viewers. In both Anne Rice's novel and the 1994 movie, Brad Pitt plays Louis de Pointe du Lac, a plantation owner who is turned into a vampire by Lestat (Tom Cruise), leading to his slaves revolting against him when they come to believe he is an evil being. Louis is portrayed as a tragic hero, more or less, and it might have been a bit much to see a blood-sucking slave owner given so much sympathy. Thankfully, AMC changed Louis in big ways for their "Interview with the Vampire" television series, removing the elements that make him impossible to root for in the novel and movie.

It's also entirely possible that Oprah was simply grossed out by the blood and gore, or found the scene in which Lestat turns the child Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) into a vampire to be truly grotesque. Whatever the case, she really hated "Interview with the Vampire" (although probably not nearly as much as Brad Pitt hated filming it). Then again, this is the woman who unleashed Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz on all of us, so how much can we trust her taste in things anyway?