Oprah Winfey makes Washington her own

Oprah Winfrey, who if Michelle Obama did not exist could probably now stake a claim to being America's First Lady, will be very much in evidence this week in Washington. As an early champion of the President-elect, she has lined up a number celebrity-drenched TV shows to mark the occasion, and her social diary has become the subject of fevered interest and speculation in the US press.

The New York Post reports that the chat show queen is running her multifarious operations from the Four Seasons hotel, where she has taken the $15,000-a-night Royal Suite natch - for five days. Last night, following the concert staged for Obama at the Lincoln Memorial, she was rumoured to be among the guests at the online African American cultural magazine The Root's ball at the National Museum of American History, where other notables included Spike Lee, John Singleton, Chris Tucker and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Today Winfrey kicks off the first of her two TV specials at the Kennedy Center. Her guests include Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Bono, Will.i.am, Faith Hill, Seal, David Foster, Mary J Blige and maybe even Scarlett Johansson, who, as reported here, claimed she regularly exchanged emails with Obama, although this was later denied by him.

In the evening, Winfrey is expected to make an appearance at Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post Ball at DC's Newseum. And tomorrow, she is believed to have bagged a close-to-ringside seat for the inauguration. In the evening, she will be at Neighbourhood Ball, where, according to the Washington Post, R&B diva Beyonce will serenade Michelle and Barack with the Etta James classic At Last.

On Wednesday, Winfrey moves live production of her show to Capitol Hill's Art and Soul Restaurant, an eatery owned by her former personal chef, Art Smith. Guests for this event are rumoured to include Forest Whitaker, Jon Bon Jovi and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

And it looks like Winfrey will become a staple on the social scene in Washington, as there are rumours she is currently looking around for a home in the Washington area. Says a Washington source for The First Post: "She sees this administration as very much her own, and she intends to make hay while it lasts." ·