Former Oprah flight attendant sues over sex allegations

By Matthew Belloni

Oprah Winfrey has had pretty good luck in litigation during her career. Back in 1998 she won a Texas defamation case brought by cattlemen who weren't thrilled when she said she'd sworn off burgers on a show about mad cow disease. This year she beat back a trillion-dollar lawsuit by a poet who claimed copyright infringement, and she recently filed an aggressive suit against marketers who claimed she put her stamp of approval on dietary supplements.

So we're always interested in anyone who dares sue the talk show queen. A former flight attendant on Oprah's private jet is saying she was fired after she was accused of having sex during a flight in June, and she's filed a federal lawsuit against Oprah's production company denying the allegations.

Corrine Gehrls alleges that flight attendant Myron Gooch and Winfrey's goddaughter, Kirby Bumpus, made false and defamatory accusations that ended up causing her to be fired.

Gehrls and chief pilot Terry Pansing were fired a short time after the allegations were made, according to the suit, even though they passed polygraph tests about the incident.

The complaint also claims that Oprah and Bumpus were asleep during the June flight after having taken sleeping pills, which doesn't seem relevant to the case but hey, if you're gonna sue Oprah, you might as well throw in an allegation people will talk about.  Good luck to Gehrls.

Neither Oprah nor her Harpo production company is commenting on the suit. The complaint seeks more than $75,000 in damages from Harpo, Gooch and Bumpus.