Tyra Banks announced yesterday that her self-titled talk show would be ending this season. That announcement was reportedly news to the show’s crew, whom she neglected to inform separately. Many of the show’s crew were from L.A., where the show had originally been based before Tyra worked out a deal to get more money for herself if the show was in New York. [In case you're wondering, she did not offer additional pay or moving expenses for the crew who opted to move cross-country with the show.] Now, several former employees have dished to the New York Daily News about Tyra’s reign of terror:
“There had been high turnover of employees for years,” a past crew member says, insisting that many people quit after just a few months because it was “pretty difficult to work for Tyra.”
“She and the higher-ups on the production staff could be extremely brutal,” the source says. “She really is a diva.”
“When the show moved from L.A. to New York, several staffers weren’t even directly told about the change - they heard through the grapevine that it was going to move locations. Even so, a lot of those people gave up their lives on the West Coast so they could continue working for the show. Now they’re out of luck.”
STA’s mascot, Naomi Campbell, is once again back in the news with some assistant-related drama. However, this time she’s the one suing instead of the one being sued. Naomi brought a suit against her former assistant, Vanessa Frisbee, who allegedly violated her non-disclosure agreement by selling a story about Naomi to a tabloid publication. Instead of waiting for a verdict, Naomi claims she’s “tired of litigation” (excuse me while I laugh hysterically for a minute) and has pulled the plug on the whole trial. That doesn’t come cheap, though - she now has to pay £300,000 for her and Frisbee’s legal fees.
Mr Sreenan [Clayton's attorney] said the matter went back to September 2008 when Ms Hawkins – who worked as a housekeeper and personal assistant – had come to Mr Clayton and confessed she had misappropriated €13,000 of his money. He had dealt with this in “a compassionate manner” and had altered his financial arrangements accordingly and kept her on in employment.
However, counsel said it had since emerged that Ms Hawkins, without the authorisation of Mr Clayton, had used his debit and credit cards.
On November 19th last, when allegations were put to her, she had accepted the cards had been used and money taken without Mr Clayton’s authorisation but she had disputed the sums involved, Mr Sreenan said. Her employment had been terminated.
Quite the celebrity assistant drama going on this week! I’m definitely keeping an eye on these two cases. Plus, did you know Adam Clayton used to date Naomi Campbell (see photo)? Isn’t it great when these posts come full circle?
The Wayans Brothers - Shawn, Marlon, and Keenan Ivory - have also been longtime collaborators. Their latest project isn’t a movie but a book, 101 Ways You Know You’re a Golddigger. However, Jared Edwards, who worked as an assistant to the brothers for over a decade, claims that the book was originally his idea and that his famous bosses stole it. In a lawsuit, Edwards says he originally conceived the idea for a book called You Know You’re A Golddigger When… and told the Wayanses about it. He claims that the Wayanses liked the idea a lot and offered themselves up as cowriters. Edwards then quit his assistant job to work on the project full-time.
If Edwards is telling the truth, then the Wayanses did a shitty thing and should definitely face the music. However, there’s one thing that bugs me about all of this - why is a corny-sounding book full of one-liners about golddiggers considered such a brilliant, innovative idea? And furthermore, why is it an idea you’re so proud of that you’d go to court in order to stake your claim to it? Are golddiggers about to become the new vampires? Regardless, we’ll see how the lawsuit shakes out over the next few months. I’m going to bet it gets settled out of court.
Anne Burrell hosts Secrets of a Restaurant Chef on the Food Network, and she has the skills to back it up - she was the executive chef at New York’s Centro Vinoteca restaurant. However, just because she made it to the top of her profession doesn’t mean she didn’t step on anyone to get there. Slashfood got their hands on documents relating to a lawsuit filed against Burrell by former employees:
According to the suit, rehashed in a dismissal motion, Burrell was hung up on Centro Vinoteca’s employees’ breasts; She told one employee that leaning over the bar was “slutty,” commented “repeatedly” on another employee’s cleavage and announced that a bartender had “saggy boobs,” creating a special “saggy boob” hand gesture to mock her. The complaint further states that Burrell suspended an employee for allegedly stealing a piece of cheese, claimed an employee faked an ovarian cyst and banged a pan when a manager urged her to be a better communicator.
Burrell is about to get a second Food Network show - Worst Cooks in America. Perhaps she can also get a gig appearing on a spinoff about America’s worst bosses?
Yesterday, my high school crush, Rivers Cuomo, was hospitalized after the tour bus he, his wife and daughter, and members of his band Weezer were traveling in got into an accident outside of Albany, NY. According to New York magazine, “the vehicle slid on a patch of black ice, ran through a guardrail, and dropped about ten feet into a ditch.”
Rivers has three cracked ribs, and his assistant Sarah Kim fractured two ribs and a lower vertebrae. Although those injuries are no laughing matter, I’m glad to hear that everyone is (mostly) OK. Assistants, we should keep a vigil! Or at the very least, send poor Sarah some snacks that will taste better than that hospital food.
I think it might be time for me to go listen to Pinkerton on repeat.
If I had been running this blog eight years ago, I would have definitely written about Jane Andrews, the Natavia Lowery of her day. However, former celeb assistant Andrews (she spent nine years working for Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson, the Duchess of York and mom of Princess Beatrice) didn’t kill her boss - she murdered her former boyfriend, Thomas Cressman. Instead of hitting him with a yoga stick, she hit him with a cricket bat.
Andrews was sentenced to life imprisonment. Today, British authorities announced that Andrews has escaped from the prison she was being housed in. She was not present for the daily 8 AM roll call and a search for her began immediately.
In other news, Jane Andrews’ name makes me think of the real Jane Andrews, one of Anne Shirley’s chums from the Anne of Green Gables books. Case in point: this is where I landed after typing “Jane Andrews” into Wiki.
When crazypants Kate Major, who left her job at Star magazine to date reality “star” and father of eight Jon Gosselin, I thought she was completely making up her story that Jon offered to hire her as his personal assistant. However, it seems I owe Ms. Major an apology: in a lawsuit against Gosselin by TLC, the network that aired Jon and Kate Plus Eight and claims he violated his contract with them, one piece of evidence is a handwritten employment agreement between the two. In the document, Gosselin says he will pay Major the same amount of money she was making at her previous job to be his assistant. According to today’s New York Daily News:
The secret contract, dated July 28, 2009, reads: “I, Jon Gosselin, will employ Kate Major as a personal assistant,” pledging to give her “some but not all future accounts.”
Gosselin also wrote that “she will receive a percentage of accounts for payment based upon involvement.”
Major also promised in the newly revealed document, to “run any media inquiries past Jon Gosselin before doing any on-air or print work.” She likewise pledged to give Jon approval over questions and to exclude questions he nixed.
Major has been subpoenaed to testify in the case. This is getting good. I wonder if TLC will summon Michael Lohan as well?
Sad news from the Associated Press newsrooms around the country - Gawker is reporting that almost all of the company’s editorial assistants were let go in a round of mass layoffs yesterday. One tipster told them:
I was one of the editorial assistants let go. I was told it was a business decision to let go nearly all editorial assistants. Some in cities of regional desks will be reassigned to handle EA workload there.
That’s sad to hear - not only for the people who got laid off and lost their livelihoods, but for the remaining employees, who will probably have really intense combo jobs to deal with. And I’m willing to bet that the people with said combo jobs probably won’t be getting raises or title changes to compensate them for all the additional work they’re doing.
All in all, I feel sad for all those people - the employed and the unemployed. Save the editorial assistants!
Jenni Muro, Lindsay Lohan’s long-suffering assistant/manager (who reportedly finally quit this year) has been through a lot: she was there the night that Lindsay’s second assistant quit and LiLo went on a high-speed pursuit, and she once saved her boss from drowning in an overflowing bathtub. Really, the woman should be getting combat pay.
Now, though, another member of the Lohan family is making Jenni’s life miserable - Lindsay’s famewhore dad, Michael. Michael, who claims to want to help his drug-addled daughter but is happy to collect money from tabloid programs in the meantime, released a voicemail that Jenni left him. In the message, Jenni says, “I get a 5% commission on this entire TV show and it’s sick and disgusting and I’m here and I give up my boyfriend and my dog and my parents and my new place in LA and everything so that your daughter doesn’t kill herself, ok?”
Remember how Anna Wintour’s daughter, Columbia grad Bee Shaffer, just couldn’t find a job? Well, even though she has a degree in theater and wanted to stay out of mom’s publishing world, Bee has finally landed herself a gig - as the assistant to Ricky Van Veen, the editor in chief of College Humor. No word on whether Bee will actually have to run errands and get Van Veen’s coffee or if she’ll just get to be the “pretty girl” in Vimeo videos, but either way, she’s got something to put on her resume now. Congrats, Bee - and good move sticking with the internet instead of the ever-dying world of print publishing. And if you ever have any workplace horror stories you might want to send this way, I totally promise to keep your identity a secret.
Now, let’s just hope there are some jobs left for the rest of us.
Tyra Banks announced yesterday that her self-titled talk show would be ending this season. That announcement was reportedly news to the show’s crew, whom she neglected to inform separately. Many of the show’s crew were from L.A., where the show had originally been based before Tyra worked out a deal to get more money for herself if the show was in New York. [In case you're wondering, she did not offer additional pay or moving expenses for the crew who opted to move cross-country with the show.] Now, several former employees have dished to the New York Daily News about Tyra’s reign of terror:
STA’s mascot, 
Anne Burrell hosts Secrets of a Restaurant Chef on the Food Network, and she has the skills to back it up - she was the executive chef at New York’s Centro Vinoteca restaurant. However, just because she made it to the top of her profession doesn’t mean she didn’t step on anyone to get there. 
When crazypants Kate Major, who left her job at Star magazine to date reality “star” and father of eight Jon Gosselin, I thought she was completely making up her story that Jon offered to hire her as his personal assistant. However, it seems I owe Ms. Major an apology: in a lawsuit against Gosselin by TLC, the network that aired Jon and Kate Plus Eight and claims he violated his contract with them, one piece of evidence is 
Jenni Muro, Lindsay Lohan’s long-suffering assistant/manager (who reportedly finally quit this year) has been through a lot: she was there the night that Lindsay’s second assistant quit 
Remember how Anna Wintour’s daughter, Columbia grad Bee Shaffer,