Oprah Winfrey Defends Memoir's Author in On-Air Call

"Although some of the facts have been questioned

Frey's televised appearance was the first time he or Winfrey has spoken publicly about the controversy over "A Million Little Pieces," which began last weekend with a report by the Smoking Gun website that called into question the veracity of key moments, particularly altercations with the police, in Frey's purported retelling of his past drug abuse and rehabilitation.

"I am disappointed by this controversy," said Winfrey, who selected Frey's memoir for her readers' club in October. "I rely on the publishers to define the category that a book falls within and also the authenticity of the work," Winfrey said in an apparent rebuke of how the book was marketed.

Frey, who is also a screenwriter, defended his work as a "truthful" but "subjective recollection of my life," and said the "essential truth" of the work should not be eroded by challenges to the veracity of some of the events he described. Frey said his embellishments, which he did not address directly, were far outweighed by the basic truth of his experiences.

Frey urged readers to look beyond the fabrications to what he said was an honest evocation of the anguish in an addict's life. But he acknowledged that the questions raised over his embellishments led to inevitable questions about the other more private events in a book set mainly during his time in rehab.

"That's something I'm going to have to deal with," Frey said.

The controversy hasn't hurt sales. "A Million Little Pieces" remained a top seller at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com on Wednesday, and led all 12 bestseller lists monitored by industry website Publisher's Marketplace. There are 3.5 million copies of the book in print.

Frey, dressed in an open-collar blue shirt and joined by his mother for part of the interview, said he was surprised by the inquiry into his accounts of committing crimes and run-ins with police, saying that Smoking Gun had targeted only a few pages of a 400-plus-page book. Bill Bastone, who wrote the Smoking Gun article, said Monday that the website had only tried to verify events for which there would be a public record -- the legal encounters -- and did not try to substantiate other portions of the book.