Oprah Winfrey - Oprah Makes No Surprise Rule As Final Series Premiere Approaches

OPRAH WINFREY has made her staff members promise there will be no surprises on the final season of her hit talk show - because the sudden arrival of special celebrity guests is too much for the TV personality to handle.

The queen of chat will embark on the 25th and final year of Oprah next month (Sep10) and she plans to make her last shows more about "moments" than celebrities - but she doesn't want the moments to be about her.

Winfrey showed TV fans and her assistants just how badly she copes with surprises when her heroine, Mary Tyler Moore, showed up unannounced on one show last season - and the host doesn't want a repeat of that.

She tells TV Guide magazine, "I went into the ugly cry on the air (and) I made a rule that I was never to be surprised again on air. I don't want to lose that kind of control.

"If you've ever looked at that tape, snot's running out of my nose and I had such a headache that I couldn't focus. I don't handle surprise very well."