BRUCE WILLIS - WILLIS DEFENDS FREY

BRUCE WILLIS has jumped to the defence of controversial author JAMES FREY, declaring he was unfairly attacked on OPRAH WINFREY's TV show last month (26JAN06).

Frey has been criticised for embellishing parts of his best-selling book, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, which was originally billed as a memoir.

The DIE HARD star says, "Look at what happened to James Frey in the last two weeks. That's a great book and so is the follow-up book.

"And just because his publisher chose to say that these were memoirs, it took it out of being a great work of fiction... to this guy having to go be sucker punched on Oprah by one of the most powerful women in television, just to grind her own axe about it.

"Hey, Oprah. You had PRESIDENT CLINTON on your show and if this prick didn't lie about a couple of things, I'm going to set myself on fire right now.

"James Frey is a writer, OK? He can write about whatever he wants. It's fiction. It's just shameful how he was treated in some of these things."