Tattle: Ted and Gayle Haggard visit with Oprah

SINCE

Ted Haggard

is now on "

Oprah

," and is the subject of an HBO movie, he's fair game for Tattle.

As part of Ted's rehabilitation tour, wife Gayle Haggard tells Oprah today that she knew about her husband's struggles with same-sex attraction for years, but thought he had overcome his homosexual urges before a scandal involving a male prostitute spurred his downfall in late 2006.

She says that she was shocked when he first told her the truth about the allegations against him.

"The first words out of my mouth were, 'Who are you?' "she said.

Clearly, she had no idea.

She said that early in their 30-year marriage, Ted "struggled with some thoughts."

"I felt it was the thing that could destroy Ted if he gave in to it," she said. "So I prayed for him and I felt as though he was winning the battle."

That's the thing about prayer. Sometimes it works . . .

. . . And sometimes your husband is gay.

Ted, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and New Life Church, after his male hooker went public. Ted confessed to "sexual immorality."

The scandal widened recently with disclosures that Ted also admitted to an "inappropriate" relationship with then-22-year-old church volunteer Grant Haas.

Grant told KRDO in Colorado Springs that Ted had performed a sex act in front of him and sent him illicit text messages. Haas and New Life Church reached a settlement in 2007 that included a confidentiality agreement, but Haas has gone public (and the church isn't stopping him) now that Haggard is heavily promoting the HBO documentary about his time in exile.

That was the Associated Press' term: "Exile."

Ted Haggard is not Napoleon. He's not Moses and the Jews wandering the desert.

He's a guy who, before he got fired, resigned his job as a moral authority because his actions diminished his moral authority.

If he's a victim, he's a victim of his own beliefs.

No apology for

finger-synching

Also feeling the need for a little redemption, although we're not sure why, is pianist Gabriela Montero, who says that she and the other members of the Barack Obama inauguration quartet (Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Anthony McGill) were not trying to fool anybody by having recorded music played in the biting cold.

Shaken by comparisons to lip-synchers Milli Vanilli, Montero insists that she and her fellow musicians "did the right thing."

"What is upsetting me these days is the fact that we put so much love into this, with a very profound desire to make it so beautiful," the Venezuelan-American pianist said yesterday. "My only regret is that, unfortunately, some people have chosen to focus on the wrong thing."

Montero said that the quartet actually did play "Air and Simple Gifts," but the music was drowned out by the amplified music that they had recorded two days earlier.

You ever try to make a piano heard in front of a million people in subfreezing temps? The day before the inauguration, about half a dozen keys on the Steinway were sticking, and the piano was not projecting enough sound, Montero said.

"We decided that it would have been a disaster if we went out there with that cold, with the wind, and played our instruments out of tune," she said. "Can you imagine what kind of tone it would have set? . . . It would absolutely have been a pathetic way to lead a president into his oath. . . . "

Tattbits

* The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed suit in L.A. Monday to block Phoenix-based McMurry Inc. from selling a luxury ticket package to its Feb. 22 Oscars telecast. The seven-night package starts at $175,000, according to the lawsuit and McMurry's Web site.

Oh, no! Does this mean the show is going to last seven nights? We'll never make deadline!

The Academy's suit claims that McMurry plans to sell at least four of the packages, which promise pampering and a strut down the red carpet.

Oscar tickets are not transferrable, a policy aimed at keeping out stalkers and terrorists.

And Borat.

* This could be a little scary.

Even though the 1967 "Bonnie and Clyde," starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, is considered one of the best films ever, the Hollywood Reporter says that the story of the Depression-era bank robbers is getting a retelling.

Kevin Zegers is in talks to play Clyde.

As Bonnie? Hilary Duff.

* Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek," and his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, will spend eternity together in space.

Celestis, specializing in "memorial spaceflights," said Monday that it will ship the cremated remains of the couple into space next year.

(Some of Gene was already launched a decade ago.)

The Roddenberrys' space crypt and their remains, sealed in capsules designed to withstand the rigors of space travel, will travel ever deeper into space, bravely going where no ashes have gone before, and will not return to Earth, Celestis spokeswoman Susan Schonfeld said.

* In Washington Monday night, George Clooney traded jokes with his father, veteran journalist Nick Clooney, before a screening of George's 2005 film "Good Night and Good Luck."

George wrote and directed the film about legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, which his father is now using to teach journalism students at American University.

Part of George's film portrayed Murrow's struggle to maintain support from CBS executives for critical reporting on Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Nick Clooney told his journalism students: "You will get precisely the news you deserve if you accept mediocrity." *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Send e-mail to gensleh@phillynews.com