Graydon Carter On Why Vanity Fair’s GOOP “Takedown” Piece Sucks
Last October, Vanity Fair’s editor-in-chief Graydon Carter said that Christmas was coming early when he announced that a VF reporter was writing a GOOP tell-all piece. The whitest and most pretentious war was born when Goopy Paltrow told all of her friends to keep their mouths shut if Vanity Fair called them, and if they were really a friend they’d ban that low-class trash magazine. Graydon got his hos to sniff up the silver-leafed asshole of Goopy Paltrow’s life for juicy dingles like how she might’ve cheated on Chris Martin with some billionaire. BORING! We all popped the popcorn, covered it with extra processed butter oil and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for something truly escandaloso. After several GOOP-less issues of Vanity Fair came out, it became clear that VF’s supposed takedown piece was going to be as juicy and scandalous as a picture of Charlie Sheen doing a bump of coke off of a porn star’s clit.
In December, it was reported that Goopy and Graydon Carter had a no heart-to-no heart talk and worked out whatever differences they had. The anti-GOOP piece that was supposed to be a throbbing and veiny 9″ burrito dick of juiciness was really going to be a flaccid pencil eraser dick. Vanity Fair published their GOOP piece in the March issue and Graydon writes in his editor’s letter that it’s not the giant slab of meat that everyone was hoping to gnaw on. Graydon says that it was never supposed to be a takedown piece. VF’s Vanessa Grigoriadis wanted to write a fluff piece on Goopy’s haters and lovers and that’s exactly what she did.
Vanessa turned in her story at the end of the summer. And it was just what had been assigned—a reasoned, reported essay on the hate/love-fest that encircles Gwyneth Paltrow. I thought it perfectly explained the whole phenomenon. But it was such a far cry from the almost mythical story that people were by now expecting—the “epic takedown,” filled with “bombshell” revelations—that it was bound to be a disappointment. What to do? I decided to sit on it for a time.
While Graydon was sitting on that story, Goopy called him to talk about the reaction to VF’s piece about her. She asked him how she could convert the anti-Goopers into pro-Goopers. Graydon should’ve let her know that he could turn all of us GOOP haters into GOOP lovers if she split her fortune between us all and then retired to the Nunavut territory and was never heard from again. But Graydon told her that she could convert the haters if she gained 15 pounds since that usually works for him. Goopy laughed and let him know in so many words that he’s a fat slob who is more than 15 pounds overweight and she was slowly getting fatter just from listening to his fat voice.
In October, Gwyneth called me. We talked for about 20 minutes about the story and her reaction, or over-reaction, to it. At one point, she asked my advice as to what to do to get the “haters” on her side. I suggested putting on 15 pounds. I joked that it works for me. She replied I had put on much more than that. Which I thought was fair and funny. Two months after the phone call, Web sites lit up with news of a truce. We received more mail, much of it now criticizing us for caving. There had also been conflicting reports that Gwyneth had coerced George Clooney into not being on our cover—clearly not true. There were reports that she was trying to scuttle our annual Oscar party, that she was going to organize a competing dinner. The Paltrow camp subsequently denied both claims.
Graydon says that they sat on the story for so long, because it’s boring, pretty much:
The Gwyneth Paltrow saga had clearly just gotten away from us. My instinct was to continue to let it sit until people had forgotten about it, or at least until expectations had diminished. The fact is the Gwyneth Paltrow story, the one we ordered up, as delightfully written as it was, is not the one the anti-Gwynethites expect. That it has generated more mail and attention than many of the biggest stories we’ve ever published only makes the situation more complicated . . .
But Graydon did manage to get in one kick to Goopy’s GOOP by comparing her to Kim Jong-Un, because she dictated to her fancy friends to not talk to Vanity Fair about her. Goopy is probably seriously offended by that comparison, because Kim Jong-Un wears polyester suits. TRASH! Goopy would never.
Basically, Graydon caved in to the GOOP and we should all prepare our eye rolling-muscles, because now that her ego has grown to twice its size she’s going to be GOOPier than ever. And Graydon is dead wrong about the 15 pounds thing. If Goopy gained 15 pounds or 150 pounds, she’d still be an insufferable twat pimple. Shallow Hal proved that.
And instead of publishing their GOOP fluff piece, Graydon should’ve published a 5,000 word piece on how he gets his hair to look like a magnificent silver ski slope of perfection.