Anna Wintour, the legendary editor of US style bible magazine Vogue is making it know that she made a “gentle suggestion” to Oprah Winfrey prior to her front page photoshoot in 1998. According to Anna, it was just a gentle nudge: “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight. “I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper! She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet. And it was one of our most successful covers ever.”

Oprah, 55, was featured on on the cover of Vogue, which carried the tagline ‘Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover’ in reference to her new film Beloved and weight loss. Anna has also called for better education to help halt rising cases of obesity in America. The 59-year-old fashionista - who recently commissioned a detailed feature on the issue - told 60 Minutes: “I’d just been on a trip to Minnesota, where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses. There’s such an epidemic of obesity in the United States, and for some reason, everybody focuses on anorexia. We need to spend money time and education on teaching people to eat, exercise and take care of themselves in a healthier way. It provoked, which is really the point.”

People are “little houses” - did you get that?