Photo: George Burns/Harpo Studios

Montel says going up against Oprah drove him crazy sometimes, especially when it came to booking guests. "We would have screaming battles in our office because you beat us to a guest. That was the one thing that always killed me," he says. "So I would get people coming into the office at 4:30 in the morning to catch the person before they walked into The Today Show or Good Morning America, knowing that you were in Chicago and you couldn't get them. That's the only way we got somebody before you. Most of the time they would call and go, 'Well, we're waiting for Oprah's call.'"

"Let me just say for the record we never had a conflict," Ricki says. "The people that were on my show were never on Oprah's first!"