Oprah Winfrey: Wait, wait. They said this to you?

Bugs Bunny: Well, no one said it outright, of course. I mean, this is Holly­wood, right, Oprah? We’re all supposed to be progressive and liberal and —

Oprah Winfrey: But you’re saying the studio executives knew you were trans?

Bugs Bunny: We didn’t have that word back then. But they knew something was . . . different about me. I mean, watch the footage. I’m in a dress, like, most of the time.

Oprah Winfrey: I guess what I’m trying to understand is, why now? Why the book, why the lawsuit?

Bugs Bunny: Oprah, it’s not for me, okay? I’m fine. I saved my money and used it to buy a lot of rental units in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s for the cartoon rabbits who come after me. It’s for them. They should be able to work in this industry without worrying about their safety.

Oprah Winfrey: You felt unsafe?

Bugs Bunny: All the time! And yes, a lot of that was because there were anvils dropping all the time, and I had to carry around a lot of props. And then Elmer was always there, with that gun, and the carrots. But you know something, Oprah? None of that was as scary as getting called into the office because someone said they saw you wearing lipstick.

Oprah Winfrey: For a scene?

Bugs Bunny: At first, sure. It was “Be the funny bunny” until they called “Cut,” and then it was “Go home and stay out of sight.”

Oprah Winfrey: Was it the same for you, Elmer?

Elmer Fudd: Not weawy. You see, Oprah, I occupied a fairwee exhalted pwace at the studio. I wecognize that now. I was the beneficiary of a wot of white pwiviwege. I’m working through a lot of that twauma. So to be honest, I’m weady here to take a step back and wisten and wearn.

Oprah Winfrey: Did you guys ever talk about this stuff with each other?

Bugs Bunny: Can I just say — and it’s really the first time I’ve said this publicly — that Elmer Fudd got me through a lot of really tough stuff? He was a real friend and a supporter. I know he sang “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit,” but he’s really just a total mushy sweetheart and a truly decent man. I see it all the time on Twitter and the other socials — that Elmer is a gun nut, that he’s emblematic of a kind of cartoonish toxic masculinity, blah blah blah. No. No. This man is a hero and he does not deserve what he’s getting.

Elmer Fudd: Thank you so much, Bugs. I weawy appweciate that.

Oprah Winfrey: Can I tell you what I’m hearing from other folks? They’re saying that this is all just a PR stunt. That you guys have seen what’s happened to Speedy Gonzales and Pepé Le Pew, and you’re trying to get in front of it, trying to keep from getting canceled yourselves. What do you say to that?

Bugs Bunny: That’s just so much nonsense. Really. I won’t even dignify it with —

Oprah Winfrey: But people are saying that.

Bugs Bunny: I don’t even know Speedy. Pepé I’ve met maybe twice? At a charity function, I think. We travel in different circles. So I can’t speak to the current issue except to say that in general I tend to side with the victim.

Elmer Fudd: Speedy and I were fwiends many years ago. I weached out to him just as this whole bwou-ha-ha was ewupting. He nevuh wesponded. The whole situation is twagic.

Oprah Winfrey: But you must admit that this is all very timely. Just as the back catalogues of some popular animation studios are appearing on streaming services, some of your competitors have been canceled, people are taking another look at your work and reevaluating it —

Bugs Bunny: I’m proud of the work we did, okay? Was it perfect? No. Was I perfect? No. But it’s important for contemporary audiences to see me in context, as a trans bunny working in an unsafe and toxic environment, before they judge me and God forbid cancel me just because some of my improvisations and impersonations were ill advised.

Oprah Winfrey: Can we talk about Daffy?

Bugs Bunny: Sure.

Oprah Winfrey: You two don’t talk?

Bugs Bunny: No.

Oprah Winfrey: Can I read to you what he wrote to me? He sent me an email, when he knew that you and I were going to sit down. He said, “Oprah, while I remember many of the moments and experiences that Bugs writes about differently, I have never wavered in my respect for him as a performer. But his recollections of the past paint him as a victim, as the only victim, and it’s hard for me to reconcile that with my own memory. I do not doubt that Bugs suffered much hurt and pain, but he also caused hurt and pain in others, and now that people’s careers and residual payments are being destroyed, all of this seems more about money and less about setting the record straight.”

Bugs Bunny: Nothing you just read surprises me, Oprah. Daffy was always about Daffy.

Elmer Fudd: Daffy is what psychowogists call a mawignant nawcissist.

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