Not too terribly long ago, Oprah Winfrey told “Good Morning America” that Tom Cruise and his couch jumping were whack:

“It was wilder than it was appearing to me,” Winfrey said. “I was just trying to maintain the truth for myself because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And what I was prepared for was the dance that happens when you’re doing celebrities — when you know they’re not going to tell you, but you’re going to ask anyway, and then you try asking another way.”

Instead of the “dance,” Winfrey was confronted with an Irish jig on top of her furniture.

“I was not buying — not buying or not buying,” Winfrey said of Cruise’s declarations of love. “That’s why I kept saying to [him,] ‘you’re gone, you’re really gone.’”

So, we’re wondering what sort of blackmail occurred for Oprah to invite Cruise onto her show for a “twofer” in a vain attempt to repair his still-tarnished image. Oprah doesn’t need the ratings or the money. The thing is, I’m betting that Tom didn’t even want to have any part in this reunion because, hell, his public image is fine, already. He’s normal, remember? It’s society, having been brainwashed by psychiatrists gone wild, that has the problem.

At any rate, Oprah reportedly “goes there” with Cruise by grilling him about Scientology, his temper tantrum when asked about psychiatry by Matt Lauer, “and, yes, the infamous couch-jumping incident.” We even hear that Oprah let Tom drive her around on his little snowmobile. Awwwww.

Seriously, blackmail.

Image: Access Hollywood