Letterman 'reveals origin of Oprah feud'

David Letterman has apparently revealed the real reason why Oprah Winfrey "hated" him for several years.

The famously frosty relationship between the two talkshow hosts was believed to stem from an incident at the 1995 Oscars, where Letterman as host made fun of Winfrey and Uma Thurman's unusual names, repeating: "Oprah - Uma. Uma - Oprah."

However, Letterman has now admitted on an edition of The Late Show that the animosity arose from an entirely different incident.

Asked by guest Jon Stewart about the hostility between the pair, Letterman said: "This pre-dated the Academy Awards. She hated me long before then."

The comedian went on to describe how he once ate lunch with then-girlfriend Regina Lasko at the same restaurant as Winfrey and her partner Steadman Graham.

He continued: "I said to Regina, 'This is hilarious, I'm going to make Oprah buy us lunch.' So I called the waiter over... and I said, 'The woman over there has been kind enough to take care of our check,' and he says, 'Oh, absolutely, thank you very much.'

"So as we're leaving, and the waiter and Regina and myself are at the door, I wave to Oprah. She waves back. Now the waiter thinks, 'Oh sure.'

"So then we walked [out] and got a free lunch. That's where it started."

Letterman and Winfrey buried the hatchet on screen when Winfrey appeared on his CBS chatshow in 2005.