Oprah Talks to Rudy Giuliani

Oprah: That's right—kids are just people with not as much life experience.

Rudy: I talk to them about who bin Laden is, and we also talk about the people we know who died.

Oprah: Have you managed to maintain a solid relationship with your children in spite of the split?

Rudy: Oh, yes. I've missed only one of Andrew's football games, and that was on the first weekend after September 11.

Oprah: I don't know, Mayor—you might be Superman! You're trying to make it to all the funerals while still carrying on with daily business.

Rudy: No, I'm just very lucky. And my son plays early in the morning.

Oprah: What has it meant for you to have Judith in your life during this time?

Rudy: It has been enormously important. She's been with me through two life-threatening experiences—prostate cancer and this. In some ways, cancer was more difficult to deal with because it was more personal. I didn't have a lot of people to share it with.

Oprah: Was your willingness to make your cancer diagnosis public part of telling the truth for yourself?

Rudy: Yes.

Oprah: And you didn't care what anybody thought.

Rudy: No. The only time I care what people think is when I believe I've been wrong. When I can say I've been too harsh or brushed something off, I will say I'm sorry.

Oprah: Do you wish there were things in your private life that weren't so public—like the separation and divorce?

Rudy: I wish all of that was private, and I wish I could have dealt with cancer privately. So I talk about it only when I absolutely have to. The only time the private parts of someone's life are relevant is when they're affecting public performance. And just because someone is a public person doesn't mean that any part of his or her private life is open to scrutiny. If someone is doing his or her job, you have to have enough empathy to understand that we all have personal problems.