Sam Perry lends Oprah a shoulder to cry on

Former Reuters journalist Sam Perry lent Oprah Winfrey a shoulder to cry on during Barack Obama’s presidential election victory speech in Chicago on Tuesday.

The television superstar said on Wednesday’s show: “Friends called me around the country and said, ‘Who was with you?’ I said, ‘I don’t know him, but he was very nice to me.’ At one point I was just sobbing on his shoulder, mascara everywhere. Thank you, Mr Man, for letting me cry on your shoulder.”

Perry and his wife were among the estimated 250,000 people thronging Chicago’s Grant Park after Obama became the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. He acted as the Obama campaign’s communications director for Silicon Valley, California.

Perry, now based in Menlo Park, California, is due to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday.

Postscript: At the taping of Friday’s show in Chicago Winfrey called from the stage “Sam Perry... please stand up” and our man bounded forward from the audience for a hug with the queen of daytime TV talk shows.

“We were in the moment,” Perry said. “...people were staked out at my house yesterday as well and it just seemed like... we had a moment where the ‘stand up for change’ manifest in this election” was “taking over from Joe the Plumber,” a reference to the everyman from Ohio hailed by Republican candidate John McCain during the campaign.

The Oprah Blog ■