We knew that yesterday was not the beginning and the end of the most ridiculous "socialite" we've ever seen. The profile of Melissa Berkelhammer, which ran in the New York Observer yesterday, sparked a slew of reader comments on Gawker, and inspired a Jossip reader to compare the Princeton grad to the unflattering sculpture of Hilary Clinton and her bust.
Today, however, it's Lloyd Grove who's got the real scoop. (Did we really just say that?)
But The Observer story omitted how Berkelhammer spends her days: haranguing publicists, including the one her wealthy parents keep on retainer, in her quest to become a boldface name.
Lowdown has learned that New York publicist and Hamptons Magazine columnist R. Couri Hay … receives thousands of dollars from Melissa's mom and her dad, Manhattan psychiatrist Edward Berkelhammer.
For an estimated $2,500 a month, Hay helps the reed-thin Berkelhammer get into exclusive parties and onto benefit committees. In one revealing E-mail to a fellow publicist, Hay mused: "She's really a nice girl. Gaining 5 pounds, she looks the healthiest yet."
The piece goes on to say Berkelhammer calls up Hay crying when she can't get into events, "which happens almost weekly."
Hahahaha. We love it! We really don't care if R. Couri Hay takes cash from this pathetic girl's parents — that's just good entrepreneurial skills. We just can't believe the New York Observer would leave out the part where the bitch is calling up everyone she knows and crying because the real socialites don't want her hanging around at Cipriani's.
Making socialite a Hay-list celeb [Lowdown, Daily News]
Earlier: Melissa Berkelhammer, Dumbest Law Student Ever
Everybody makes mistakes. Even the home to shake-downs, DUIs, and crazy emailing rants, Page Six, makes a mistake now and again. Like when they labeled Tinsely Mortimer's photo yesterday Tinsley Martinez instead. Oops!
Well, the folks over at Gawker thought it was funny (and it more or less was) to point out how wrong that "nobody deserves this kind of ethnicity." Actually, their exact quote was,
To fuck up a fancy white girl by slapping some brown on her? Oh hell no.
Of course, it was meant in jest. We're sure they didn't really mean to offend anyone other than the uppity milk-skinned people who would rather die than be called anything that ends in "ez." The problem is, the girl she's standing next to, Fabiola Beracasa isn't Italian or some other more ethnic version of white. She's Latina.
The only big glitch of their own is that Fabiola Beracasa, the glamorous girl posing with Tinsley in the picture is Spanish-speaking, Venezuelan bred society leader. Not only does she proudly bear that ethnicity, she’s powerfully climbing on our list, currently at grand #4.
Hmm, you think maybe Bercasa is one of the select few who would not only deserve but embrace "that type of ethnicity?" And one would inherently think that if Page Six couldn't fathom a high society party where a Mortimer and a Beracasa could coexist, you'd think they'd have renamed the Spanish one Berger or something.
Gawker Confuses Ethnicities [Social Rank]
• Hallelujah, there is power in Queens! Of course, people are still really pissed. New Yorkers aren't New Yorkers without their grudges. [NYT]
• In other exciting news, Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams aren’t moving after all. They’re staying for the Prince concerts. Obviously. [OTBKB]
• Meet Melissa Berkelhammer. She hate, hate, hated law school. We, on the other hand, are still trying to figure out how she got it … considering she has trouble dressing herself. [NYO]
• Rudolf Guiliani "exchanging pleasantries" with Lindsay Lohan? Um, did she think he was her driver? [Page Six]
• Another fun outdoor art project, yay! And this time, they will be much more interesting to watch than a bunch of flapping orange flags. [WABC]
The order of events in fashion history, according to the New York Times, goes as such: supermodels replaced regular models, and then celebrities replaced supermodels. And now, they suggest, socialites will replace celebrities. Ok, we can agree that may happen In advertising, perhaps. But the day we see Lydia Hearst on the cover of Glamour just shoot us right then and there.
Among the latest high society elitist to join the ad campaigners of various fashion lines:
Tinsley Mortimer is promoting a Japanese handbag line, Samantha Thavasa; Lydia Hearst-Shaw has appeared in ads for Prada and Louis Vuitton; Amanda Hearst is the new face of Lilly Pulitzer; and Jessica Joffe, a former New York Observer writer who is writing a novel, will appear in fall ads for Banana Republic.
Ouch. Everyone else is doing Prada and LV and Jessica Joffe gets Banana? If only she had chosen to write for Hamptons magazine instead.
Don't I Know You From the Party Pages? [Eric Wilson, New York Times]
When Jason Preston busted out his forearm as a billboard of free advertising for his boyfriend Marc Jacobs, everybody cooed and gurgled over their cutie pie relationship.
Things were truly heavenly for Marc and his glam, tan boytoy, as they graced carpet after carpet together, expressing their disdain for other gays. Preston even boasted on his Friendster profile that he likes sweet guys who know how to be a "HOT FUCK." Aww, that's so cute.
Well, it was cute anyway. Marc and Jason are duzo, yo, and Marc blames the crumble on Jason's party life.
But Jacobs tells Pride magazine that their relationship is now more over than pashmina shawls. "I wanted things to be a certain way, and it's just not working," he said, sadly. "I wanted him to be there when I wanted him to be there. I have to be in bed at 11:30 and he's 25 and wants to go to clubs every night. . . . I adore him. But do I want to control him? No."
Though, if we dare say, somebody needs to control this dude. He's gone so far as to post responses to this mess on his updated (though still "in a relationship" tagged) Friendster profile. And insulting gossips, which, everyone knows, is the best way to get gossiped about.
It's funny how you think you know somebody and then they turn out to be someone you never expected. It sucks because I believed in him, I believed in us.
Yeah, that sucks. Too bad you have a tattoo of your ex's name on your arm and told the rest of the guys in your dating pool how much you hate them for being gay.
Design for living [Michael Musto, Village Voice]
When the sun kissed gods of Miami grace New York City with their presence, and we're invited, we hardly decline. And because the opportunity to skip dozens of people in line still thrills us, we trekked up to Marquee last night to celebrate the special New York issue of Ocean Drive.
Admittedly, we were there half as press and half as party goers, but we made every attempt to contact the hosts of the party. The host list which read like a who's who of SoHo House, promised such socialites and scenesters as Patrick McMullan, Tinsely Mortimer, Jonathan Cheban, and Michael Musto. Oh, and we were told Maer Roshan would be there too.
Yet, when we arrived at the Ocean Drive party section of the club, there wasn't even a PR person to be found. And while we're definite fans of Michael Musto, he played the role of "stand in the corner and don't talk to people host." No Tins, no Patrick … not even Peter Davis made an appearance.
We did, however, find Hilary Duff sitting in another corner, surrounded by friends and of course her sister Hailey, and being blocked by her bodyguard. Who was allowed to smoke inside. When we tried to talk to her, she looked at us, looked at her bouncer, and we were quickly shooed away by the very, very large man. And despite the help of Ben Widdicombe, we were unable to locate a Maer Roshan or a single Radar-lite among the sea of clubbers.
Somewhat disappointing — we were promised the Tins, we got the Duffs — but nothing a few mojitos and random hotties from Denmark couldn't cure.
• Our lives now officially have purpose. Our savior is born.
• This week it was 'EIC this' and 'EIC that.' Honestly, nobody actually knew who these people were until they got fired. Or hired. Or went to the beach.
• We can not leave our un-airconditioned apartment without Richard Johnson getting a DUI and making us come back and report on it.
• Anna Nicole Smith is reproducing. Well, did you really think the devil would be far behind?
• It would totally suck going to high school with these people.
• Yes, Katie Couric is gone. She's really, really, really gone. And everyone cried and sung songs about colonoscopies. And then, she bought a house. Go for it Katie!
A Jossip reader is quite concerned that we may have jeopardized our access to the booze which flows freely from Paper magazine parties.
Peter Davis, socialite reporter and one-man Tinsley Mortimer press machine extraordinaire, backs Paper. And since we insist on prying into the journalistic motives of this elite media and society member, well, we risk being blacklisted from the Paper scene.
Paper gives good parties - read: lots of free booze - and P. [Peter] Davis is a backer of Paper. Didn't you know he was loaded? It's Davis as in the "Davis Cup," a tennis to-do founded by his great-great-something (uncle? grandfather?). If you don't beieve me, just look at his signet ring.
We are flattered that our reader is so concerned — especially because he insinuates that this coverage in some way makes braver than our peers who choose to ignore this socialite on socialite dry hump in order to maintain their open bar access. (We think that it's just because nobody else really cares.) Either way, fear not.
If a Paper party worth attending comes along, and we are left without an invite, we will simply crash. If only to ask Peter Davis if he will please put photos of us on Patrick McMullan in exchange for more favorable coverage on our blog.
We think we have found a new topic of fascination here at Jossip: socialite reporter Peter Davis. (In addition, we also love the term "socialite reporter" and are going to start throwing it around the way Davis throws around his sister-in-law's name to get writing assignments.)
After his New York Times "Socialite Boys" story, which favorably featured his boyfriend/arm candy Christian Leone, we thought it was pretty funny/pathetic that he thought maybe nobody would notice. But then we realized his preferential writing style, not to mention personal climb up the social Himalayas of New York, didn't end there. He's wiggled into the Mortimer clan, writes about Tinsley Mortimer for every magazine including Fashion Week Daily, and went to college with Jared Paul Stern.
Davis also trumps up more ink for Leone in Avenue Magazine, that uptown real-estate cum socialite rag that rich people get in their doorman buildings. In his Avenue column this month, Davis snaps a photo of a smiling Leone and also of his family: socialites sisters-in-law Tinsley Mortimer and Dabney Mercer replete with glowing mentions of what they are wearing.
If, in fact, the rumors are true (Avenue has not yet returned calls or e-mails) it is quite interesting that Davis is not only talking up his family, but also trying to score a few point with his editors by glowing over them in the Times
.
"People have their pose down," Mr. Leone said, watching as Mr. Saffir grinned for the cameras with yet another woman, Debbie Bancroft, a society columnist for Avenue magazine.
The next morning, many of those images appeared on the Web site of the photographer Patrick McMullan, and perhaps would later show up in the party pages of glossies like Quest, Avenue, Vogue, Gotham and W. The site patrickmcmullan.com has page after page of pictures of men about town (578 for Mr. Saffir) or, for lack of a better term, male socialites.
So do you think the Times should also include an editor's note on how he works for Debbie Bancroft and that he himself appears on Patrick McMullan's site more than MisShapes end up on Last Night's Party?
Our tipsters full e-mail, stuffed with amazing "I heard" quotes and tons of "elitists suck" sarc, after the jump.
CONTINUED »
Maybe this is just how things work in the wonderful world of socialite elitist types, and we just don't get it … but we like to think we get things. And what we get from this is that Peter Davis is more of a PR/publicist type that a journalist.
Because our readers are better investigators than half the journos out there, they are always uncovering these strange unknown connections. Especially, for some reason, when it comes to Peter Davis. As of yesterday, we knew approximately two things about Davis: 1) He wrote a New York Times articles about how super special his "It Boy" boyfriend is, and 2) He went to college with Jared Paul Stern. Now, we can add a third fun Davis fact to that list.
Did you know also that Peter Davis is socialite Tinsley Mortimer's brother in law?
Actually, we didn't know that. Very interesting. So we did a smidgen of research on it, and found that yes, his sister married into the the Mortimer family.
I LOVE this photo I took of the Mortimer clan: longtime PAPER editor Peter Davis (who incidentally was one of PAPER's first interns about twenty years ago!!!) flanked by his sister (right) Minnie Mortimer and his sister-in-law (left) Tinsley Mortimer. Cute family portrait, no? Meanwhile, I also snapped Peter's handsome brother, Topper (left above), with Anne Slater at Heatherette. What a quirky and fabulous dynasty.
Big deal, right? So Davis really wants to be one of these "on the scene" type journalists. We can relate. But we think it's funny that he isn't just related to the Tins, he also writes about her and the fab clan (pictured) for Fashion Week Daily.
At a Lyn Devon party, he accomplished the amazing feat of "spotting" the people he showed up with:
The guest list at Devon’s show ran like a who’s who of chicettes. We spotted Tinsley Mortimer (in Zac Posen), Minnie Mortimer (just back from the West Indies), Jessica Joffe, Jill Kargman, Allison Aston …
Then he snagged those hard to land "what are you doing for Easter" interviews, and somehow got his sister-in-law to spill to him. (All you really need to know is that she's doing nothing except eating peeps and wearing Manolos.)
Maybe it isn't the biggest deal in the world, but somehow a Paper editor and Times writer being paid to promote his own socialite clan by inserting photos and dreadfully boring interviews with their ring leader seems a little … self promotional? Dishonest? Elitist?
Well, at least it's Ethics in Journalism Week … and Peter Davis is making sure we're not left disappointed.
Related: DYNASTY [Paper Magazine Blog]
• Nothing says "wake up with a warm cup" than a steaming pile of shit that looks like a coffee cup. New York advertisers are getting really desperate to reach you jaded freaks. [Gothamist]
• The graffiti isn't just annoying and hard to read … it is actually eating the subway trains. [NYT]
• A very scientific method of figuring out which people to avoid at all possible costs. [Social Rank]
• Don't listen to Mayor Bloomberg. He doesn't realize how important it is for you to wast time reading blogs. [NYDN]
• Times Square adopts the most loved thing in Brooklyn, Junior's Cheesecake. This borough is really running out of cute little indie things. [OTBKB]
We knew it wouldn't take long to find one more thing to make fun of in Peter Davis' "It Boy" article in Sunday's New York Times. In the fluff piece, the writer rattled a few names of male socialites who are supposedly recognizable by imaginary "female counterparts," and include:
Mr. Leone, 34; Mr. Saffir, 39; Luigi Tadini, 23, a jewelry executive; Derek Blasberg, 24, a freelance writer; and Euan Rellie, 38, the chairman of Lucy Sykes New York, a fledgling clothing line mostly for children, to name a few.
One Mr. Leone would be Giorgio Armani publicist Christian Leone (left), Davis' current beau.
Davis didn't tell readers that he's dating Leone. But fashionable types who knew of their relationship first raised their well-manicured eyebrows on March 8, when Davis penned a giddy "exclusive" for fashionweekdaily.com, reporting that Armani had just "nabbed" Leone to be vice president of public relations.
A spokesman from the Times printed an apology which emphasized that the relationship should have been disclosed to readers. But does anybody really expect a Sunday Styles writer to date a person whose name just shows up in regular face print?
FROM BOYFRIEND TO BOLDFACE [Page Six]
Earlier: Just Don't Call Them 'It' Boys. Or Gay
The "It boy" article has been done. Dozens of times. So what lead NYT's Sunday Styles along the path to revisit the archetype? We're not sure, exactly, but it seems scribe Peter Davis got his hands on a "new" term: male socialite — always an excuse for a Styles piece. So there Davis goes, traversing the charity party circuit in search of an explanation for the XYs in Gotham's party pages.
The job description was codified: those usually gay men accompanied women whose husbands abhorred the black-tie circuit; the men were well dressed and cultured and knew to step aside when photographers raised their cameras. After the party, they escorted their dates to their front doors, and no farther.
Davis then goes on name drop codified examples of male socialites: jewelry "exec" Luigi Tadini, Derek Blasberg (seen here uncomfortably close to the also-straight Men's Voguer Hud Morgan), and, of course, Fabian Basabe. The new male socialites, you see, are not gay.
(In the interest of fairness, both Tadini and Basabe have explicitly expressed their heterosexuality to us. Blasberg – who we've never had the chance to meet – needs no explanation.)
The Socialite Wore a Black Tie [Peter Davis, NYT]
As the race heats up between Paris Hilton's imposters – Natalie Reid has 50 Friendsters, while TV show hopeful Chantelle Houghton has, to our knowledge, zero – so too are their backstories. But can the faux heiresses really compete with Paris' true beginnings, what with her sex tape, Page Sixation, whirlwind 21st birthday tour, Carl's Jr. controversy, and endless boob and crotch exposures?
Yes, it turns out. This report came in late last night from a reader:
Natalie Reid used to perform in the Canadian drag bars under the name "Tess Tickle". She always looked very girly and was VERY skinny, but once she grew her hair out and went on hormones she really began to look amazing.
When she went to work at that drag agency in New York they told her not to market herself as a drag queen because she'd get more jobs as a real woman. She is pretty much a woman now anyway though I doubt she has had the full surgury. Her male name used to be Cameron. I'm not sure if her last name was "Reid" because we generally called her Tess.
Needless to say, all of the preceeding statements require liberal uses of the terms "allegedly," "unconfirmed," and "probably, and most likely, entirely made up."
Related: All Natalie Reid coverage
• Village Voice editor Don Forst is resigning from his post, effective Dec. 31. Nice ouster, New Times. [Gawker]
• Speaking of indie mergers, we seem to have missed the New York Blade getting together with HX. Gay marriage, at last. [NY Blade]
• To save Bryant Park from miscreants, the city formed the nonprofit Bryant Park Resotration Corporation. Funny, then, that the place is now being run like a business. [NYT]
• In-flight magazines are not, as it turns out, merely glorified sky malls. But they are in danger of going down without landing gear. [Mediabistro]
• Somehow, Simon Dumenco continues getting paid for screaming at his TV. [AdAge]
• Thanks to designers willing to let socialites borrow party dresses, the B-list never has to wear the same thing twice. [NYT]
• With the creation of "verified" circulation, magazine publishers receive the affirmation they've been looking for: to grotesquely inflate their readership numbers. [Folio]
• With ex-WWD scribe and alleged Halloween rapist Peter Braunstein being spotted throughout Ohio, all those sightings in NYC (like that Brooklyn cafe) are being labeled wishful thinking. [NYDN]
We haven't heard much from last summer's Hamptons princess Anna Anisimova lately, but that doesn't mean the former Denise Rich estate inhabitant isn't making waves while Paris Hilton abandoned the East End for European shores.
It was Anna's chance to establish herself as a Hamptons icon these past few months, not just a summertime one-off. It might be too late already, since she's only got till Labor Day to impress the gossips, and so far we haven't heard much since her season kick-off. Interesting, because she suffered the same fate last year, waiting until the last minute to throw a press-worthy bash.
But c'mon folks, she's trying. Really. Hard.
Just look: She hosted the Annual Young Friends of the Mental Illness Prevention Center at her Hamptons pad, where,
From the second guest left their cars, they were transported to paradise as Hula dancers greeted guest with a warm Aloha and adorned them with Laies around their neck.
The storytelling continues, with bonus B-list socliaites, after the jump.
CONTINUED »
The debut issue of WWD Sccop was really letting us down. No insider gossip, celebrity dating trends or model catfights we didn't already know about. That, and we had just finished paging through V and any book smaller than that just doesn't impress.
But then we found the backpage, where "fashion celebrities" were asked to compose Haiku poems. And to ease you into the weekend (again), we bring you the soft spoken words (from our shitty, smarmy camera phone) of Ms. Tory "by TBR" Burch.
Now don't think this excuses you from your daily affirmations.
Paris Hilton should really learn about places on her body where she can hide tattoos. But until then, we'll identify Paris with wrist tattoos in the way we identify Madonna with fucking obnoxious red string bracelets.
First she convinces now ex-boyfriend Nick Carter into making a huge ink mistake and now she's discontent with current boyfriend Paris Latsis' "Z" tattoo on his wrist from his two-year relationship with Zeta Graff. Hilton has allegedly given him an ultimatum, but that doesn't stop Paris2 from "coupling" four times a night. Wow, that's the same number of times we vomit every Thursday morning to forget about the previous night's Simple Life.
It's just as difficult for us to read Vanity Fair as it is for us to read about Vanity Fair, but we're gonna do it all for you right here, right now - and that's service journalism, folks. And what's more, it's a VF piece about every designer's publicist's nightmare, Kimora Lee Simmons. You wouldn't know her from her View ripoff Life & Style, but you might know her for prostituting her children in Baby Phat ads.
Kimora Lee has some very interesting things to say, nearly always about herself. So to keep you from actually having to glance over Nancy Jo Sales adverbs, we'll just pick out the quotables to give you a real look inside the Russell Simmons household.
· "Oooooh, I like this."
· "Fabulous."
· "I will do a backflip down that red carpet … I don't care."
· "I am anorexic."
· "My doctor says it's having an unhealthy relationship with food. After I had my babies I was thick."
· ""I hate it [her television show, Life & Style]! I thought it would be fun! I'm not used to having a boss. I'm the boss. I don't need the money. I'm filthy fucking rich!"
· "My life is very - big!"
· "Tell Deebo to bring me my supplements!"
· "Our Christmas tree was like the tree from Rockefeller Center. It was a $30,000
OMFG. It's too much, we can't stomach the rest of the article, even for the sake of service journalism. Feel free to read it yourself, but we warn you: The phrase "Bitches!" is followed by "I will beat a bitch's ass!" - and that just can't be healthy with kids around.
Image via The Smoking Gun
There's a time and a place for people of color to speak their mind (for white people, it's the summer Hamptons season), and even we thought the pages of Vanity Fair would never be the place. But maybe Graydon Carter owes Russell Simmons a favor, and thus wifey Kimora Lee graces the pages of next month's issue, where she articulately explains her philosophy on home wreckers: "I don't play that disrespectful ho [bleep]. I have very little respect for those kinds of women. And if I catch you with my man, disrespecting, I will beat your ass." Though the punishment for stealing one of her maids would be much worse, we assure you.
Editorial Director
