Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter isn’t done talking about the Gwyneth Paltrow “takedown” piece that sadly doesn’t exist.
Or, he is done talking about it, but we only got to see part of his editor’s letter in the Hollywood Issue last time, and now there’s some more info about all the dramz.
It will never be as interesting as the expos├â┬⌐ we’d all built up in our minds (and be we, we reference the entire internet), but the way it snowballed is pretty crazy.
Graydon explains:
“[The Gwyneth piece] was one of probably a half-dozen stories we ordered up that week, and once the assignment was made, I didn├óΓé¼Γäót think too much more about it, inasmuch as it wasn├óΓé¼Γäót due in until the end of the summer. Vanessa began making the rounds, talking to people in and out of Hollywood in an effort to get some understanding of the Paltrow phenomenon. And then she reached out to representatives of Gwyneth├óΓé¼Γäós and then to Gwyneth├óΓé¼Γäós friends.
Well, this just released a whole mess of furies. Paltrow sent out a mass e-mail to her show-business friends saying that the magazine was going ├óΓé¼┼ôtabloid├óΓé¼┬¥ following our coverage of Tom Cruise├óΓé¼Γäós search for the perfect Scientology wife, and Brad Pitt├óΓé¼Γäós search for the perfect action-film franchise. ├óΓé¼┼ôVanity Fair is threatening to put me on the cover of their magazine without my participation,├óΓé¼┬¥ she said. ├óΓé¼┼ôI recommend you all never do this magazine again.├óΓé¼┬¥ She asked that they not speak to Vanity Fair about her, or about anything else ever again. Ever. Never. Kim Jong-un couldn├óΓé¼Γäót have issued a more blanket demand. In due time, the e-mail made its way onto the New York Post├óΓé¼Γäós ├óΓé¼┼ôPage Six.├óΓé¼┬¥ An actress throwing a hissy fit is hardly news. But the extreme ferocity of Paltrow├óΓé¼Γäós outrage set off alarm bells throughout the dark regions of the celebrity-mining industry. The overall theory: she must have something to hide.”
Hmm, still sounds like she had something to hide, if she got SOOOOO upset about the possibility of a less-than-flattering piece on her, don’t U think???
The editor adds:
“And then things just went haywire. The New York Times inflated the story into a Vanity Fair-vs.-Hollywood slugfest. Magazines and Web sites tried both to anticipate what we had in our story and to best us. Web sites wrote of an ├óΓé¼┼ôepic├óΓé¼┬¥ Gwyneth Paltrow ├óΓé¼┼ôtakedown├óΓé¼┬¥ that would retail all manner of misbehavior. They speculated on which ├óΓé¼┼ôbombshell├óΓé¼┬¥ we would publish. Web sites such as Radar Online listed the former chums who were now on her ├óΓé¼┼ôfrenemies├óΓé¼┬¥ list├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥Winona Ryder, Kate Moss, and Madonna, among others. There were reports of odd├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥and conflicting├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥personal habits. Her trainer, Tracy Anderson, the woman presumably most responsible for those celebrated legs and abs (after Blythe Danner, of course), was dragged into it. She reportedly refused to speak to Vanessa, despite the fact that she hadn├óΓé¼Γäót been contacted. There were accusations of serial infidelity├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥which the actress vehemently denied. One recurring name in this area of scholarship was a man whose wife is well within Paltrow├óΓé¼Γäós London social circle. So that must have been awkward.”
Awkward is an understatement!
We can’t help but wonder if Elle Macpherson still holds a bit of a grudge for Gwynnie about that whole mess, even if it was all just rumors!
The drama hounded Graydon for a considerable amount of time. He said:
“By this time, the Paltrow story was moving into the realm of urban legend. I had strangers stop me in the street and approach me at restaurants to ask about the story. An elder relative who lives in a faraway corner of the world tacked on to the end of an otherwise family-oriented e-mail a query about when the piece was going to run. The mail flowed into the office. Anti-Gwynethites threatened to cancel their subscriptions if the story didn├óΓé¼Γäót run.”
And he once again crushes our hopes and dreams by saying that there won’t be any “takedown” type pieces about any celebrities in the future.
“The fact is the Gwyneth Paltrow story, the one we ordered up, as delightfully written as it was, is not the one the anti-Gwynethites expect. That it has generated more mail and attention than many of the biggest stories we├óΓé¼Γäóve ever published only makes the situation more complicated. The thing of it is, we really don├óΓé¼Γäót publish ├óΓé¼┼ôepic,├óΓé¼┬¥ out-of-the-blue ├óΓé¼┼ôtakedowns├óΓé¼┬¥ of individual public figures, unless they are in heated conflict with another public figure or unless their positions and their actions have a grievous effect on the lives of others. We├óΓé¼Γäóll save our gunpowder for bigger stories. And so, sorry as we are to disappoint all those many people out there, for the time being we├óΓé¼Γäóll leave it to another publication to roll out the ├óΓé¼┼ôepic bombshells├óΓé¼┬¥ surrounding Gwyneth Paltrow. It├óΓé¼Γäós a story I might read. I just don├óΓé¼Γäót want to publish it.“
Sadsies.
Le sigh…
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