God that Naomi volte-face makes me laugh. I have a friend who interviewed her and she sounds pure theatre. Unapologetically so. Before you castigate yourself too much, I think the getting-mugged-en-route-to-an-interview debacle is a journalistic rite of passage. I had the exact same thing happen in Islington, when my phone was stolen with not one, not two, but THREE profile interviews on it. I had to re-do every single one. They were so gracious, particularly Bella Freud. I’ve also had the exact same thing happen when Brene Brown’s publicist asked me to interview her for The Sunday Times but only if they could review it afterwards, bc she’d recently had a poor review in the same paper. That’s not journalism... that’s a press release. (I declined.) I love this newsletter Eleanor, thank you for it!
Thanks so much Pandora, and pure theatre is the perfect way to describe NC! Oh my god losing three interviews in one go… I would have collapsed. It’s happened to me once when I accidentally had one puff of someone’s extremely strong joint before interviewing the now cancelled Wiley and let’s just say I don’t remember anything and my dictaphone was never turned on. When I DM’d him afterwards asking to re do it he said ‘only if you’re not as intense as last time’… with a Googley eye emoji. mortifying.
Talking of PRs and the stories they could tell, have you read Barbara Charone's memoir? She's got lots of great anecdotes.
I haven’t yet actually! Does she spill on Madonna ?
There's quite a lot about Madonna. And taking revenge on journos who didn't support her in the early days.
God that Naomi volte-face makes me laugh. I have a friend who interviewed her and she sounds pure theatre. Unapologetically so. Before you castigate yourself too much, I think the getting-mugged-en-route-to-an-interview debacle is a journalistic rite of passage. I had the exact same thing happen in Islington, when my phone was stolen with not one, not two, but THREE profile interviews on it. I had to re-do every single one. They were so gracious, particularly Bella Freud. I’ve also had the exact same thing happen when Brene Brown’s publicist asked me to interview her for The Sunday Times but only if they could review it afterwards, bc she’d recently had a poor review in the same paper. That’s not journalism... that’s a press release. (I declined.) I love this newsletter Eleanor, thank you for it!
Thanks so much Pandora, and pure theatre is the perfect way to describe NC! Oh my god losing three interviews in one go… I would have collapsed. It’s happened to me once when I accidentally had one puff of someone’s extremely strong joint before interviewing the now cancelled Wiley and let’s just say I don’t remember anything and my dictaphone was never turned on. When I DM’d him afterwards asking to re do it he said ‘only if you’re not as intense as last time’… with a Googley eye emoji. mortifying.
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