Since we’ve been covering the Steve DeLuca fallout at Rolling Stone, we thought it might be worth updating you on our other favorite Wenner Media scandal: the case of Gwen Cooper.
You remember Gwen from September, when rumor of the Wenner marketing staffer’s South Beach fictionalized tell-all Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl began surfacing in publishing and media circles and set Rolling Stone‘s flacks-a-flaming.
Turns out – predictably – that when Cooper finally inked the paperwork for her manuscript, Wenner thought it’d be best to severe their relationship. It was Jan. 24 when the paperwork with Simon & Schuster imprint Simon Spotlight was signed (we’re told Patrick Price, editor of last year’s He’s Just Not That Into You, will be heading the project) and, three days later on Jan. 27, Cooper was let go by Wenner CMO Gary Amstrong.
We asked Gwen how she felt about it. Like a true media-savvy pro, she issued this friendly response:
My three years at Wenner Media were a blast, but it’s always been my dream to write a book. I’m just thrilled and amazed at how quickly everything has happened.
We thought about asking Wenner Media for an official comment, but we really don’t want to distract them from all their DeLuca dealings. And either way, we’re just pleased someone was let go from a publishing firm outside Ann Moore‘s way of doing things at Time Inc. Now can someone please update us on Jodi Peckman‘s status?
Related: All Gwen Cooper coverage
We don’t really want to go all Hudson Morgan and furnish a stink when someone’s claim against us goes awry, but we can’t let last week’s Gawker snub go unmentioned.
As we told leaked to you last week, Wenner Media’s Gwen Cooper‘s South Beach tell-all is already keeping her agent at The Firm a very busy man — with publishers and film studios fox trotting to have a hand in it.
Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves isn’t just going to explicate on the Katrina-donating Naomi Campbell or ratings disaster guarantor Diddy, but it’s irking her bosses at Wenner since, well, they have relationships with a good portion of the talent name dropped in Cooper’s SoBe tome.
But our cousins in criticism at Gawker didn’t think it was such a big deal, or that Jann Wenner could be distracted from ensuring your pens are organized by color in staffers’ drawers.
So why does this matter? Why are ???????tabloids hovering???????? We????????re guessing they aren????????t, actually, since Cooper reportedly hasn????????t sold the damn thing and has thus resorted to hyping it as some scandal around the blogosphere.
Funny, then, that Page Six ran the item yesterday, the New York Daily News has been making phone calls to all parties involved and the Miami Herald took an interest on Saturday.
Not that we noticed, or anything. Anyhow, it’s Fashion Week — let’s leave the catfights out the the blogosphere for a week if we can catch them on the runway instead.
It’s only been a few hours and already Wenner Media’s shitstorm is, well, a shitstorm. Full on diarrhea here, folks.
The upcoming Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl is causing many a headache at 1290 Sixth. Even though Jann Wenner‘s reps won’t say much officially, they’re well aware many a tabloid are already hovering over the SoBe tell-all from Gwen Cooper (yes, we can reveal her name now), who actually doesn’t answer to Janice Min or anyone in editorial.
Thus far the only comment we could wrangle out of Wenner’s camp is as follows:
The author of this book is a Wenner staffer who is in a non-editorial position. She is a fourth generation Miami native and her decision to write this book is separate and distinct from Wenner media.
Completely separate? Lovely. We’re sure that’ll turn media hounds exactly zero degrees away from the connection.
Meanwhile, we hear Jann himself offered to match contributions made to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort at tonight’s Us event in L.A.
What’s that we hear? More scandal coming out of Wenner Media’s walls?
The house that Rolling Stone built might be tidying itself up and begging staffers for Hurricane Katrina donations, but that’s going to do little to dam the coming waterfall of borderline slander oozing from 1290 Sixth.
We’re told a Wenner staffer just put the finishing touches on a South Beach tell-all, with notorious negotiators The Firm already repping the scribe and shopping it around to publishers (and film studios).
The “fictional” roman a clef Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves: The Memoirs of a South Beach Party Girl is going to name drop SoBe’s boldface names, from Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Todd Oldham to Chris Ciccone, Niki Taylor, Patricia Field and Diddy — with the drug-fused, sex-laden tales to match.
We’ve got nightclub impresario Chris Paciello caught in a compromising poolside position with Jennifer Lopez at the Delano along with Candace Bushnell parading naked with a local party boy.
Anna Wintour‘s reaction to The Devil Wears Prada should pale in comparison to the seething that’s sure to infiltrate the SoBe set.
Oh, plus there’s the coming-of-age tale of the Wenner writing narrator, from her befriending of an heiress to her eventual New York (and Jann Wenner office) arrival. And with the fat book deal (we’re hearing a six-figure sum is on the horizon), this Wenner staffer might wave goodbye to her desk — and leave it a mess just to spite Jann.
(In the interest of maintaining a smidge of journalistic integrity, we placed a call to Jann Wenner’s office. Thus far, “No comment.” For now.)