Someone claims to have put snot in Bonnie Fuller's food, and her bread inside their pants. [Gawker] What, no confirmation about the pee in the coffee?
Bonnie Fuller, who yesterday announced she was leaving her editorial director post at AMI to work on new things, knew she was going to get picked up by the industry press, who have never taken kindly to her. Keith Kelly reminds us that "In the end, few are sorry to see her leave AMI." [NYP] And the Post also took the time to mock up this faux tabloid cover, with coverlines, "Terrible Tyrant Tossed!," "Pecker Wins Day!," and "Former Staffers Jubilant!" Eh, it's kind of weak, but they did manage to squeeze four exclamation points on the thing, and even Bonnie would respect that.
By voluntarily stepping down from American Media's editorial director spot, Bonnie Fuller isn't just saying goodbye to a position of power, but also:
• $1.5 million in annual salary
• $500,000 a year, minimum, in bonus / a "target bonus" of $1 million
• First-class airfare and Four Seasons-level travel accommodations
• $80,000 in car services
• $2,000 for business-related hair and make up
A bit of breaking news: Bonnie Fuller, blogger and comedian, is finally stepping down as editorial director of American Media Inc., a position she's held since July 2003, silencing the months/years-long rumors that she would do so. The decision is effective tomorrow. She'll stay on as editor-at-large for Star and will, says the release, serve as a consultant to CEO David Pecker.
This will give Bonnie more time to criticize Lynne Spears.
Update: Naturally, the speculation that Bonnie has been fired is bubbling up. We're assured by one multiple insiders that she's stepping down voluntarily. Though perhaps unfortunately for Fuller, both scenarios are plausible.
CONTINUED »
SAD FACE Star editorial director Bonnie Fuller has already had her share of family trouble, from her oldest daughter undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor at age two, to her younger daughter being diagnosed with leukemia at age five. And now more personal tragedy: We hear her mother Tanya, who has been battling cancer for years, just passed. The funeral is tomorrow.
Rosie O'Donnell: "Leave Miley Cyrus alone," O'Donnell says in a video posted Monday night. "Disney [is] making her apologize. Ay yi yi. [...] Listen, Annie Leibovitz – I had two photo shoots with her. You kind of do what she says. It's intimidating. I also didn't think it was a pornographic photo in any capacity. I thought it was sort of a beautiful portrait. [...] "I like the one of her and her dad, too. I don't know. It's Annie Leibovitz, people."
Bonnie Fuller: "Does anyone else find it ironic that men in a polygamy cult in Texas are being locked up for sexually exploiting teenage girls while here in medialand, a half-nude photo of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair is being touted as art?"
Why was Jessica Gibson, Rob Lowe's former nanny, smiling like a cat that just ate a canary during her interview with Meredith Vieira on the "Today" Show yesterday? Her apparently happy demeanor struck me as odd. As a purported victim of sexual harassment, shouldn't she at least look and sound a little upset?
Answers TMZ: CONTINUED »
It's not a rant about celebrities who whore out their children, but this mock interview with everyone's favorite AMI editorial director has done more to humanize Bonnie Fuller than anything she's blogged on Huffington Post. More, please! CONTINUED »
Woman-hating Bonnie Fuller doesn't understand why aging women like Hillary Clinton and Madonna just give up already. We get it: YOU'RE BOTH BIG SUCCESSES! Now grab some chamomile tea, take a steam, and give it up already. There are younger, more agile folks who want a shot at the top.
Blogs Bloggy Fuller: CONTINUED »
Bonnie Fuller's latest "Star magazine plug disguised as a Huffington Post item" rants, very typically, on the pater- and materfamilias of the Spears clan.
To Fuller, dad Jamie and mom Lynne are simply taking advantage of daughter Britney and Jamie Lynn's lifestyles, living in their homes, collecting their fees, and cashing in on any opportunity their offspring's fame affords them, even though neither of them are in very healthy states right now.
So what's Bonnie's advice?
So I say to Jamie and Lynne Spears, if you really want to prove your love to your daughters, how about trying to nix the reported deal to sell Jamie Lynn's upcoming baby pics for $1 million?
Interesting advice, coming from someone who is also said to have bid on those photos — and lost out to OK! magazine.
Yesterday's New York University panel about celebrity gossip and its players, sponsored by The Atlantic magazine and aptly titled "The Britney Show," brought together heavyweights like Page Six's Richard Johnson, Star's Bonnie Fuller, and X17's Brandy and François Navarre, who were kind enough to leave their six million dollar Pacific Palisades home to hang in the city.
Johnson shot himself in the foot when he called celebrity blogs "parasites," accusing them of not "generat[ing] their own news stories," which is amusing since Page Six wouldn't get through the day without lifting items from many of these bottom-feeding blogs, and the brand's own effort at competing with them failed after just three months.
And the always quotable Brandy Navarre, who is building a cache of Miley Cyrus photos in the hopes she becomes the next trainwreck poptart, admits her agency is "trying to get the shots before they go into rehab."
And that's when her God complex shines through: "Mr. Navarre suggested that a pack of paparazzi may have been able to prevent John Lennon's murder in 1980; Ms. Navarre said photos of partying starlets have sometimes spurred their families to get professional help," reports AdAge.
And the little matter of X17's own photogs allegedly brutally assaulting individuals to within an inch of their life? Well, so long as they're not celebrities, preventing their murders isn't really the Navarres' concern.
Last night Keith Kelly, and all those other Kellys, held court at Michael's for their annual Kelly Gang fundraiser. This year they were donating funds to the Krabbe Disease-focused Hunter's Hope Foundation, founded by Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly and his wife Jill for their son, Hunter.
It was St. Patrick's day, which meant lots of wearing green, stepdancing, and drinking, though that last one would've happened with or without the holiday. Publicists arrived in crowds, all there, as one publicist put it, to pay homage to and curry favor with the Post columnist. Receiving lines are cute.
A dapper Rick Stengel, Time's editor, took our drink order, but it took Time Inc. publicist Betsy Burton's wrangling for us to get it. Keith Kelly's hair had been cut recently; at least one of his kids was running around in a "Kelly" jersey. Kent Brownridge wanted to talk about a certain dragon tattoo story; new bride and Hearst publicist Alexandra Carlin did not.
New York's Jesse Oxfeld explained his birthday plans. In Touch's Dan Wakeford delivered punchlines in his British accent. Genre editor Neal Boulton shared quality time and sweet nothings with former Star editor Joe Dolce, who was all smiles and says he's working on something big but can't say what. (NB: Every unemployed person says that.) New Freud Communications queenpin Lisa Dallos tossed around bread rolls with Ron Perelman's rep Chris Taylor. Us Weekly chief Janice Min looked like she just stepped off the Photoshop screen of her photo chief (that's a compliment).
And then, toward the end of the evening, when AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller made her too-late-to-be-fashionable entrance, Min was suddenly absent from the table she had been sitting at. She could be found standing toward the back of the restaurant, engaged in conversation. With someone else.
[Photo]
Naturally, HuffPo blogger and AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller is most concerned about Eliot Spitzer's daughters – Elyssa, Sarabeth and Jenna – in this whole sex scandal mess. "Anyone who has ever been through the experience of having their father choose another woman over their mother, especially if it happened when they were a teenager, knows how traumatic this can be," she writes. "Whether your father has an affair or anonymous sex, it's all the same and it's even more devastating when the world knows about it."
Of course, back when Bonnie was running Star magazine full-time, she had no problem contributing to the trauma of Sailor Lee, 7, and Jack, 11, the children of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, who cheated on his model wife with his 19-year-old assistant, the details of which Star was hellbent on reporting.
Paying sources for stories? So not kosher at newspapers of record, but it's standard practice in the tabloid biz, no matter how many denials editors deliver.
But a tabloid other than OK! owning up to it? Psshaw. Until, that is, Star's Candace Trunzo owned up to it.
"We do pay for information," she says. "I make no qualms about it. I think all the celebrity magazines do it." They've even started printing the 800 number for a tip line, like TMZ.com does, with promises of $100 or more for information. (To the half dozen tabloid veterans who've spoken to us on the issue, it's generally accepted knowledge that TMZ pays for information. TMZ denies the charge. Like People, they're a Time Warner company, and paying sources would violate policy..)
It's all part of Candace's plan to re-supermarket-ize Star — an about-face to its mission not so long ago to glossy it up. And given Trunzo's tightknit relationship with AMI cousin National Enquirer, and its editor David Perel, the process is probably further along than you think.
Worth noting is that when Bonnie Fuller took over at the tabloid after reigning over Us Weekly, she insisted the magazine would differentiate itself from the other newsstand garbage, even though it was widely suspected scoops were still paid for under her watch.
So what's the big deal about paying for information? CONTINUED »
Bonnie Fuller is here to save Britney. In her latest Star magazine plug disguised as a HuffPo blog post, Fuller insists the only way to right Britney goes like this: "She needed to have been held in the hospital for a minimum of 30 days, just to clear her body of all the alcohol and drugs — prescription or otherwise — that she may have been imbibing. Apparently it would have taken that long for her brain chemistry to even return to 'normal' so the pros could actually evaluate what real mental illness she might have. [...] Message to Jamie and Lynne Spears: If you love your daughter, now get two 'neutral' conservators, and since a hospital won't hold her, see if you can get a 100% Britney sympathetic psychiatrist/babysitter who can treat her." [HuffPo]
Bonnie Fuller has real insights into what Britney Spears might really be suffering from, going beyond our diagnosis of just bat-shit crazy.
According to Fuller, Spears has "histrionic" personality disorder and is probably bi-polar, too.
After all, she's speaking with an English accent, wearing a pink wig and according to some sources, her mood and her personality can do a 360° switch in a matter of seconds.
So her personality can make a "360° switch" in a matter of seconds, meaning she acts the exact same way from one moment to the next?
Since we're a marginally better source on usage, trust us, Britney is just bat-shit crazy.
The much-talked about – as in, we've been talking about them much – rumors of AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller meeting with TV folks and taking meetings in LA are once again causing a stir among the top tabloid set.
We're told that, among other outlets, she's met with the E! channel. Except rather than focus on her own projects – such as a reality show about her family or something that her NYU film student son would spearhead (?) – the latest gossip suggests she's simply trying to raise her profile among David Pecker's set before Ron Burkle's takeover of the company.
She's been working with a "TV trainer" to help avoid her oft-mocked awkward presence on screen. "Apparently she's much better on camera now as a result," says a source.
Even more evidence of a new Bonnie? She's been meeting with Star's reporters ("something she hadn't done for a long while until recently") and even calling her own contacts to report stories, which we've already seen her do once.
SHOCKED AND CHAGRINED Bonnie Fuller returns to HuffPo with a Jamie Lynn Spears rant update. This time, the Star editorial director is appalled the Spears family is acting so "shocked" over the bun in the oven. [HuffPo]
How does Star figurehead chief Bonnie Fuller react to Lynne Spears giving her youngest daughter's pregnancy exclusive to a competitor?
By saying she's a bad mother! CONTINUED »
Because she doesn't get a letter in the front pages of Star, Bonnie Fuller relies on the Huffington Post to communicate with her inner child. And the general public. Yesterday, she tackled the subject of Oprah's endorsement of Barack Obama, which represents an intersection of two of Bonnie's favorite things: celebrities and black people. Citing a StarMagazine.com poll, Bonnie writes:
There could be a backlash to celebrity endorsements of political candidates — even to Oprah's personal pick. Sixty-nine percent of Star's respondents said they'd be less likely to vote for Barack Obama now that Oprah has endorsed him as a candidate. Only 31% said they'd be more likely.
Now, this response actually made me wonder if people just wanted to dispense with the politicians altogether and get right to it — vote directly for a celebrity and not just their political proxy.
Um, what? CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
