Meetings are weird things, and often they’re a breeding ground for embarrassing workplace behavior. Because of the sheer amount of boredom in the room, there’s always someone chewing on a pen, doodling, spilling coffee down the front of their shirt, or forgetting to turn their cell phone off. Well, Us Weekly has decided to share one of the most embarrassing meeting stories ever - for some reason, they deem a story about Jessica Simpson farting in a meeting to be worthy of attention on their website. I almost didn’t post about it, but I decided that it’s worth pointing out that Us Weekly is really grasping for straws. I love celebrity gossip as much as the next girl, but come on. It’s not like she pulled a Paula Abdul and answered her cell phone during a meeting. Sometimes people fart. It’s involuntary and they can’t help it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, leave the woman alone. If she says or does something, we can judge her behavior, but what’s next - an article about how she sneezed while someone was trying to ask for an autograph?
Archive for the 'Celebrity Assistant Soapbox' Category
Singer Susan Boyle recently found herself in hot water when she had an outburst at a restaurant in London. Reportedly, Susan snapped and shouted at one of the employees of the restaurant. However, it turns out Susan had someone else as the target of her ire - her assistant, who apparently told Susan that she needed to go on a diet and lose some weight. Um, not cool, assistant. I’m struggling to find a reason why anyone would tell their boss to go on a diet - even if you think that, why would you ever say it to the person who has the authority to fire you? Most celebrity assistant jobs involve being a bit of a yes man or yes woman, and I find it incredibly surprising that an assistant would ever tell their celebrity boss “you need to lose weight.” Entertainment Lawyer, as usual, has a pretty good theory - that the assistant was passing along a message from a manager or agent or someone else who wanted to pressure Susan about her looks. Sadly, it’s not at all uncommon for the people responsible for managing a famous person’s career to give the celebrity unsolicited ‘advice’ about how to dress/look, even to the point where they encourage them to diet.
That said, Susan apologized for her outburst, and let’s hope this is the last we hear of it.
Lots of people who work as celebrity assistants are doing their jobs because they’re trying to break into the entertainment industry. That makes sense, since working for a celebrity is a great way to make contacts and learn about how the industry works from the inside. However, one celebrity assistant is hoping to make the jump into a slightly less related career - he participated in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ annual “Fantasy Camp.” While most of the guys who participate in the program are trying to meet famous baseball players, there was one camp participant who had a little star power of his own:
“I was doing some scouting last night for today’s draft and I was looking over everybody’s occupation,” the former D-backs All-Star outfielder said. “I saw that one guy is list as an assistant to an actor or actress and I was wondering if he would be willing to share just who that is.”
Gregg Simon slowly stood up and said, “I’m the personal assistant to Carmen Electra.”
Not surprisingly, everybody asked if Electra might make an appearance during the week to support her PA, but it didn’t happen. MLB.com blogger Steve Gilbert, who was chronicling his experiences at Fantasy Camp, asked Simon if meeting his baseball idols was as exciting as meeting Electra’s famous friends.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “No way. This is much cooler. Meeting these guys is a much bigger deal. The only thing from ‘Hollywood’ that compares to this for me was meeting Bruce Springsteen and Howard Stern. No one else is close.”
Normally, when a famous person dates a celebrity assistant it’s a male celebrity and a female assistant (cases in point: Christian Bale and Sibi Blazic, Alejandro Sanz and Raquel Pereda, etc), which is a power differential I’ve never been entirely comfortable with. However, according to the New York Daily News, actress Rachel McAdams might be doing her part to buck the patriarchal trend. She’s reportedly dating Ben Jackson, a former model and the personal assistant to her Sherlock Holmes costar Jude Law. Sadly, the paper does not have any photos of said former model, but if I can get my hands on some I will definitely be posting them later.
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?”
Yikes. TMZ reports that Jenni plans to send Michael a cease and desist letter and might potentially sue.
Taylor, the peroxide-haired “senior assistant” who seemed to hate her boss Rachel Zoe, has been fired. There was no reason offered by either Rachel or Taylor (who Ashley likes to refer to as “the awesomely bitchy one”). Along with Rachel and fellow assistant Brad, Taylor was one of the stars of The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo, which just finished airing its second season. Today, Taylor emailed all her contacts the following note:
After four amazing years at Rachel Zoe Corporation, I’m saddened and exhilarated at the same time to announce my departure. After much thought and consideration, I have decided to take the challenging leap to go off and style on my own.
After the jump, let’s revisit some of Taylor’s finest (and most disgruntled) moments.
There are so many celebrity cameos in the upcoming second Sex and the City movie - Liza Minnelli, Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus - that when Bette Midler showed up on the set, nobody was surprised. However, the Divine Miss M wasn’t there to tape a scene. She was there to visit her daughter Sophie, who worked a stint as a production assistant on the movie. “It was a big thrill for her,” Midler told E! Online. “[Sophie] had a great time. She loves the business.”
Some internet searching makes me kind of love Sophie - she graduated from Yale, where she majored in Sociology and learned to speak fluent Mandarin. How many celebrity kids not only go to college but enjoy learning? Plus she and her mom look super cute together.
Celebrity assistants often deal with crazy situations. Sometimes that means keeping their boss from drowning in the bathtub or coping with your boss’ stalker. Actress Amanda Peet’s assistant, 26-year-old Michelle Werner, walked in on a robber stealing jewelry from Peet’s home. From Entertainment Lawyer via Page Six:
It all happened on Wednesday morning when Amanda’s assistant walked into Amanda’s house and saw a man who was holding Amanda’s jewelry box. When he saw the assistant he said, “What’s up bitch? I live here.” He then ran away.
While the robber got away with $900 worth of jewelry, Michelle was unharmed. I can imagine she was probably fucking scared to death, but I’m glad she’s OK. I can’t even imagine being in that situation, and it sounds like she handled it pretty well and kept her cool long enough to call the police and report the guy. Team Michelle!
Retired tennis star Andre Agassi has a new autobiography coming out, and it sounds like this book is going to be very interesting. In the book, Agassi admits to having used meth while playing competitively. He then failed a drug test, but managed not to be thrown out of tennis because he claimed that he hadn’t taken the meth on purpose… it was his assistant’s fault.
According to an excerpt of the autobiography “Open” published Wednesday in The Times of London, the eight-time Grand Slam champion writes that he sent a letter to the ATP tour to explain the positive test, saying he accidentally drank from a soda spiked with meth by his assistant “Slim.”
“Then I come to the central lie of the letter,” Agassi writes. “I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely.
I am guessing from the quotes that Slim wasn’t the assistant’s real name. Although… it would be even more awesome if Agassi didn’t even have an assistant and the whole story was made up. Regardless, maybe it’s time for “Slim” to write a tell-all? I’d read it.
David Archuleta, the singer who came in second place on the eighth season of American Idol, has had more success than the majority of AI castoffs. However, his busy schedule means he is having some trouble keeping up with obligations. Last week, he was set to do a phone interview with a radio station in Chicago, but he forgot about it and then Tweeted an apology. That led one of the posters on the fansite Fans of David to suggest that the singer needs a personal assistant. Despite what people think from the title of this blog, I’m not opposed to people having assistants if they need them - as long as they treat said assistants respectfully, of course. As the FOD poster said:
Could this perhaps be (yet another) sign that David may benefit from a personal assistant? You know…one of those super-proficient professionally-trained staff who knows what he wants and needs before he does? Someone who has him scheduled smoothly down to the second? Why yes, I believe that now is the time.
If you decide not to hire an assistant, David, might I suggest setting up some Google Alerts? They’ve saved my ass many a time.