Palin heartbroken over Johnston's photo shoot
Last Updated: Monday, November 16, 2009 | 7:20 PM ET
CBC News
Sarah Palin and her daughters Willow, right, and Piper, left, pose with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, during the taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago. The show aired on Monday. (George Burns/Harpo Productions Inc./Associated Press)Sarah Palin said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey on Monday that she's distressed by the decision of Levi Johnston, her daughter's former boyfriend and the father of her grandson, to pose nude for Playgirl magazine.
"Some of the things he is doing are kind of heartbreaking," she said. "It's not a healthy place to be."
Referring to his Playgirl photo shoot, she added, "I call that porn."
But she was still magnanimous towards Johnston, despite their sparring in recent months, saying he was still an immature teenager.
"He is a part of the family, and you want to bring him into the fold and under your wing," she said. "He needs to know he is loved and has a beautiful child, and this can all work out for good. It really can."
Johnston has an open invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at the Palin home in Alaska, she added.
Palin's interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show was aired the day before her 413-page book, Going Rogue, hit the bookshelves.
She dodged Winfrey's question about whether she was thinking about running for president in 2012. "I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2012," she said. "It's not on my radar screen right now."
Winfrey asked why Palin quit the Alaska governorship before her term ended. "Why not finish what you started?" she asked.
"I resigned as governor of Alaska because I wasn't going to run for a second term and I was heading into a lame-duck term," Palin replied.
But she offered a clue to her future political plans when she quoted what her father, Charles Heath, said about her resignation: "She's not retreating, she's reloading!"
Regarding her famous Katie Couric interview in which she was unable or unwilling to name a single newspaper she read, Palin said, "By the time she [asked that], I was already so annoyed… and I felt that no matter what I say, it would be twisted."
Palin faces a whirlwind schedule promoting her book in the coming week.
On Wednesday, she launches her book tour in Grand Rapids, Mich.
She'll follow that with appearances in Fort Wayne and Noblesville, Ind., on Thursday; Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, on Friday; Washington, Penn., and Rochester, N.Y., on Saturday; Roanoke, Va., on Sunday; Fort Bragg, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala., on Monday Nov. 23; and Jacksonville and Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday Nov. 24.
With files from The Associated Press
