30 new york | january 3–16, 2022
discovery that they kept similar insomniac schedules andbegan
talking often on the phone around 3 or 4 a.m., and with GregKelly
of Newsmax, son of former New York City police commissioner
Ray Kelly, also a personal friend. Those outside Dr. Oz’s socialcircle
were not invited to observe the candidate. He had thus farstaged
no rally, held no press conference, planned no public events,and
offered no public schedule.
Outside headquarters, Palma said that I might be in luck.As it
happened, he was a friend of the family, and he had anidea.He
could place a call to someone and ask them to contact Dr.Lemole—
whom he called “Uncle Jerry”—since maybe he wouldknowthe
whereabouts of his candidate son-in-law.
Palmaleft a message forUncleJerry.I waitedfora while,talking
about this and that, then I waited for a while longer, andthenI fig-
ured I should let Palma get back to painting. But before Ileft town
for the day, I decided to try reaching the Ozes directly,sincemy
ef forts to contact the candidate via what you might call theformal
process were not working. There was no answer at a numberlisted
for their home in New Jersey. And no answer at the 212number
listed for Dr. Oz himself. Then I tried Lisa Oz, the self-helpauthor
and self-described certified Reiki expert who has been marriedto
the candidate for 36 years. To my surprise, she picked up—forabout
a second. Just as quickly as it started, the call was over. I hadbarely
said hello. Unsure if we’d been disconnected or she’d hungupon
me, I tried her back. The tone of her voice suggested ithaddefi-
nitely been the latter.
“How did you get my number?” she asked sharply. Itoldher
that her number was listed in public records, and this annoyedher
too. “Oh,” she said, “I should have gotten rid of that.” I wasaboutto
explain that public records don’t work that way, but she cutin.“Have
a nice day,” she said, but it sounded like a cross betweentheway
women of the South say “Bless your heart” and men of Brooklyncall
some asshole “pal” after being cut off in traffic. Then she hungup.
Or she thought she did.
“It’s Olivia from The New Yorker, the woman whotalkedto
Michelle,” she said.
I was confused. First of all, I work for New York.
“Excuse me?” I said. “... Uh, hello?”
Another voice answered. It was Dr. Oz.
“Michelle should never have spoken to her,” he said. “That’swho’s
down at the office now.”
Dr. and Mrs. Oz did not or could not hear me, and theydidnot
realize that, rather than end the phone call, Lisa Oz had mistakenly
connected her device to what sounded like the sound systemofa
vehicle, meaning that as they engaged in paranoid conversation
and argument for more than four minutes, I remained ontheline,
hearing every word of it.
“Who’s down at the office?” Mrs. Oz asked.
“She’s down at the office,” Dr. Oz said. “Your father calledandsaid
there’s a reporter from The New Yorker waiting for me downthere
who said she had an appointment ... We?! We had an appointment
to meet today!” He said this last thing with acid sarcasm.
“You think she made it up?” Mrs. Oz asked.
“I think she made it up completely!” Dr. Oz said. Hesounded
angry. “Y–y–you know what it’s—it’s—it’s called, it’s calledlyingalso.
It ’s called being a liar.”
“This fucking girl reporter,” Mrs. Oz said. “This is the girlreporter
who broke into some guy’s house and stole all his photoalbums.”
She was referring to an accusation made up by disgracedex-Trump
aide Corey Lewandowski in retaliation after I had reporteddetails
of his Single White Male obsession with a White Houseofficial.
Lewandowski has faced accusations of assault and onecharge of
battery (which he denied; it was later dropped) from multiple
women, including my best friend, and according to his most
recent accuser, he intimidated her by claiming he had committed
two murders as he stalked, harassed, and touched her without her
consent. On the other hand, in 2019, I killed a spider that was on
my windshield, something I cried about again two weeks ago.
Dr. Oz paused. “Did someone lock the door?”
“No,” Mrs. Oz said.
“We’ve got to do it,” Dr. Oz said.
Dr. and Mrs. Oz talked over each other.
“That’s what Casey—” Mrs. Oz began to say, referring to the
campaign manager. “When Michelle told me she spoke to her—”
she continued, referring to Michelle Bouchard, a longtime friend
of the couple whom I had interviewed a few days earlier. We’d hit
it off during a long conversation that I found helpful for under-
standing Dr. and Mrs. Oz, and she had volunteered to forward my
request to the couple and encourage them to speak with me too.
Then she clammed up. If she was going to talk with me again, she
said, she would have to get approval from the Ozes before doing so.
Another friend of the couple, who spoke to me on the condition of
anonymity, said that Lisa Oz was not happy to hear that associates
were freely commenting about her husband to a reporter and that
she had been calling around, complaining that “some fucking girl”
was “doing a hit piece” and that the policy going forward should be
“Don’t fucking talk to her.” It was only day two of my assignment,
when my questions were devastating suggestions of character
assassination like “What is Dr. Oz like?” and “What do you think of
his decision to run for office?”Thiswasa smallinconveniencebutoneI wassureI couldover-
come.FuckinggirlreporterthoughI may be,I wasn’t doinga hit
piece,whichinmediajargonmeansa storythat is conceivedin
badfaithtodestroyitssubject, andI havefoundthat most people
whoarefearfulofthepressbutrequireattentionforonereason
oranothertendtoconcludethat thevalueofanopportunitytobe
understoodoutweighstheriskofbeingmisconstrued.
Dr.OzinterruptedMrs.Oz.“Michellesaidstuffsheshouldn’t
havesaid.”
Mrs.Ozbecamedefensive.“Uh,no,nota lot—”shesaid.
Dr. Oz became sharp. “She said things she shouldn’t have fucking
said,” he said, his voice rising. “She shouldn’t have fucking said—”
Mrs. Oz interrupted Dr. Oz. “She didn’t say—”
Dr. Oz interrupted Mrs. Oz. “She said shit she shouldn’t have
said! That I was going to be the next leader of the Republican
Party—”
“No, she didn’t say that,” Mrs. Oz said.
“You were the one who told me that!” Dr. Oz said. “You told me
that’s what she said!”
“No—I—” Mrs. Oz said.
“That Michelle told her I’m going to be the next leader of the
Republican Party, shit like that, that’s what you told me she said!”
Dr. Oz said.“Dr. Oz is DANGERh