Well, I've read
Phil Weiss's
New York mag story on sex-perv maybe-millionaire financier
Jeffrey Epstein twice now, but I just keep coming back to this early paragraph, from when Phil's sitting in publicist
Howard Rubenstein's office with Epstein: "When I said we were interested in the agony of his ordeal, Rubenstein wrote out the word agony in capital letters on his pad. But agony seemed the last thing on Epstein's soul. 'It's the Icarus story, someone who flies too close to the sun,' I said. 'Did Icarus like massages?' Epstein asked." Which says, it seems, that Epstein's life is a disaster because he's
tone-deaf and without a clue. And something about Howard, too. [
NY]
on the offense
Last week, we met young Maximilia "Ava" Cordero, who says she was degraded by maybe-millionaire money manager and sex disaster Jeffrey Epstein; her 57-year-old lover filed suit on her behalf against Epstein. Today, the NY Post has significantly advanced the storyline, claiming that Ms. Cordero is a man; she "was born Maximillian Cordero in 1983, records show." So that's why we couldn't find out anything about her—but the Post and their publicist who is also Jeffrey Epstein's publicist Howard Rubenstein sure could! "It wouldn't surprise me if the next claim was from the Loch Ness monster," says Epstein's lawyer. Really? Do you think that if you compare a transsexual to an immense and mysterious sea creature that we're still not going to believe he had sex with her? Or some actual sea critters, for that matter?
Gender-Bend Shocker [NY Post]
downfalls
Probable non-billionaire money manager and massage enthusiast
Jeffrey Epstein "has agreed to plead guilty to soliciting underage prostitutes at his Florida mansion in a deal that will send him to prison for about 18 months,"
says the New York Post. He'll also get some quiet house arrest time. The
Post claims that the feds will drop their own investigation for his pleading guilty to the Florida state charges. Could be true! Since the feds don't ever talk, and Epstein's main lawyer didn't talk, we assume this was all put out by PR man
Howard Rubenstein, in an effort to get it out early and make it blow over. This still is shocking—is Jeffrey Epstein
really gonna go to jail, with Clinton-hating
Ken Starr and his entourage of lawyers working on his behalf? Travesty! This is not supposed to happen to the rich!
bad day at flack rock
Sad news from Portfolio. The September issue reveals the world's worst kept secret: George Steinbrenner is unwell. The Post, writing about the piece today, describes a tragic moment from Franz Lidz' article:
Lidz recently gained entry to George Steinbrenner's home in Tampa, Fla., by tagging along with McEwen, a wheelchair-bound former Tampa Tribune sports editor.
"A solitary figure emerges out of the shadows, limping towards us," wearing silk pajamas and a terry-cloth robe, Lidz writes.
"Great to see ya, Tommy," Steinbrenner says to McEwen.
Steinbrenner says "Great to see ya," each time McEwen, 84, asks about the Boss' wife, sons and daughters in separate questions.
More »
the persistence of memory
James Brady is not easily shocked, but in his recent Forbes column, he admitted to surprise about the subject of George Steinbrenner's alleged senility.
A friend tells me The New Yorker's recent Howard Rubenstein profile had alluded to the PR man's utterances on behalf of a fading Steinbrenner, but I must have missed the deeper significance. Steinbrenner's "dementia" truly came as a shocker.
There's a pretty obvious joke to be made here about Brady's own senility, but we're feeling semi-charitable this morning, so we'll skip it. Anyway, this
isn't exactly news. Finally, if you're scoring at home, the most significant name Jim drops in this column is Elaine Kaufman. Dude's slipping.
A Steinbrenner Dilemma [Forbes]
this means war
At the highest echelons of New York's
public relations world, a war over clients and status and staff is being waged. And then there's this war too: a dust-up between 5W president
Ronn Torossian and the black sheep of the Rubenstein PR dynasty,
Richard Rubenstein. Things we can learn from the following email exchange between the two: Richard Rubenstein has been trying to poach from Ronn. Richard's dad, New York's PR kingpin
Howard Rubenstein, apparently once sued Ronn. (We can't find a record of that in a quick search, but would love to see it, if it's true.) Finally, after he destroys them all, Ronn is willing to give Richard and
Steven Rubenstein jobs at his company. Aww, isn't that sweet! Also: Very unlikely! Enjoy the saber-rattling!
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gossip wars
Those who caught the early edition of
David Carr's
Times column today probably noticed a new bit of reporting on the
Page Six incident. Page Six had said that Ian Spiegelman's allegation that Page Six editor Richard Johnson had accepted $3,000 in bribes from restaurateur Nello Balan was incorrect, because Johnson had actually only accepted $1,000. In the article that ran in today's paper, Carr had originally reported that the other $2,000—intended for Page Six staffers Jeane Macintosh and Sean Gannon (now the Business editor)—had gone to pay for staff drinks. But that allegation was missing in the late editions of the paper, and is no longer online. So what's the deal?
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new york post
Well, we all got a good cringe out of the
Times's
front page story that poked a gaping hole in the
Daily News's coverage of 9/11 hero
Cesar Borja. (He died of a lung ailment on the day that his son was Hillary Clinton's plus-one at the State of the Union address. ) Unfortunately for the
News, it didn't take the
Times much research to reveal that Borja hadn't actually been "on the pile" until the Christmas Eve after 9/11. Today, the
Post does their
predictable fun gloaty thing. Now, to be sure, the
News did a MAJOR face-plant. But it's not like the
Post covered itself in glory either. And then we got this
totally impartial [and anonymous] email.
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howard rubenstein
Unless you subscribe, you'll have to visit your local newsstand to read this week's
New Yorker profile of P.R. megastar
Howard Rubenstein. Is it worth going out into this arctic wonderland and dropping $4.50, or is the piece, as
Nikki Finke puts it, just "the usual CEO porn that [Ken] Auletta spins out on a semi-regular basis"? We donned our overcoats and headed into the freezing tundra of SoHo to find out. Here's what we learned when we thawed:
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atoosa rubenstein
Worried that you haven't seen former
Seventeen editor
Atoosa Rubenstein's name in the news in about five days or so? Fear not! The 'Toos has hired acclaimed PR firm Rubenstein Public Relations.
WWD, which reports the story, snidely suggests that the 'Toos is in good company (the firm is "known for its crisis management expertise (as in the current Michael Richards brouhaha)"), but we're going to be a bit more charitable: the 'Toos has "lots going on" what with her early exit at Hearst. And who better to help her out than the other Rubenstein, described by one wag as
...probably the worst human being alive. He is a total, total freakish nightmare scumbag. He's a crisis management guy who can't manage a crisis. Every time you go to him and he's supposed to quiet things down, he just makes it bigger and bigger. He says all the wrong things.
Is it just us, or are these two made for each other?
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ian spiegelman
In the latest installment of how to bite the hand that once fed you, former Page Sixer
Ian Spiegelman had a 15-minute phoner on Howard Stern yesterday morning; aside from the usual vitriol and stereotype-enforcing tough talk, Spiegelman had something to say about his old employers:
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Gawker
