Moviemaker Lee Daniels has stopped uttering the N-word after pal Oprah Winfrey sat him down and told him they could not be friends if he used it.

The Precious director admits it was a word he used "quite a bit" until Winfrey set him straight.

He tells Parade magazine, "Oprah sat me down and talked to me about its power."

The Tv titan, who stars in Daniels' new film The Butler, adds, "You cannot be my friend and use that word around me. It shows my age, but I feel strongly about it... I always think of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree."