bonnie-fuller

AMI Renews Bonnie Fuller's Will to Live

Jessica · 06/26/06 08:34AM

Happy Monday to Bonnie Fuller: With just five days left on her contract, AMI has recycled the editorial harridan's paperwork for another three years. Fuller will keep her base salary of $1.5 million per year, and the only change to this round of paperwork is the potential for more bonus pay: she had previously earned an average bonus of $275,000 per year, but that has been upped to a guaranteed minimum of $500,000, provided that Star doesn't deteriorate into bag-lady toilet paper. At the end of the day, it's the same luscious paycheck, the same angry staffers pissing in her soup.

AMI Report: Fuller Stays, Crappy Titles Go

Jessica · 06/14/06 08:52AM

Following WWD's speculative article about the state of her contract (up at the end of the month), rumors festered yesterday evening that AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller had left the company. AMI CEO David Pecker had called a smoke-filled meeting with the company's brassiest balls, fueling the chatter that the Canadian Fury had left the building, no doubt in an imagined fit of shin-kicking and ceramic-mug throwing. AMI flack Lisa Dallos says, "Nothing could be further from the truth."

Bonnie Fuller's Salary to Be Humiliatingly Average?

Jessica · 06/13/06 08:20AM

WWD reports today that AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller's juicy contract expires at the end of the month and has not yet been renewed. With AMI pinching pennies to the tune of sacking 5 Star staffers last week, some believe that there's no way in hell AMI chairman David Pecker will renew Fuller's contract for the $1.5 million she currently receives. In fact, Star's lackluster circulation has Pecker wanting to reduce her salary by much too much too much, dropping her Bonnie back down to the six-figure barracks:

Five Sacked As 'Star' Goes West, Young Man

Jesse · 06/07/06 05:41PM

This just in from American Media's spokespeople: Star magazine, Bonnie's little tab-turned-glossy that could, is doing a "minor restructuring" of its operations to devote more resources to its L.A. office. Which means fewer resources for the New York office. Which means five staffers — a reporter, a designer, and a few editors — were laid off this afternoon. We don't have names, though. A little help?

WSJ.com Proves Again Why It's the World's Most Successful Newspaper Website

Jesse · 05/10/06 12:21PM


And what exercise secrets can we learn from a notoriously overscheduled workaholic? Squeeze in an hour at the gym every day, like at 6 a.m. on Monday mornings. (And make sure to have dinner with the family every night — so what if your kids have to wait till 9:30 to eat?) But if you prefer more than five hours of sleep a night? Well, then no big-money AMI contract for you.

Remainders: All Cruise, All the Time

Jessica · 05/03/06 06:00PM

• OH MY GOD IT'S SO FUCKING AMAZING OH YEAH TOM CRUISE! You, too, can experience the joy of Tom, by watching the live webcast of him walking into the movie theater at 7pm. [Yahoo]
• An ad agency sues a blogger for defamation. Sigh. [AdAge]
• We don't know how we missed the photos of Diane Von Furstenburg at Monday night's Costume Institute Ball, but we're really glad that we did. [Papierblog]
• Back when New York was listing its 123 reasons to love New York, they included a group of bright young things and predicted that at least one of them would be famous by 2010. Kaavya Viswanathan was in said group. How prescient. [NYM]
• In additional Kaavya digs, we're enjoying her July 2005 Times piece on her love of Harry Potter books. Has anyone thought to compare those texts to Opal Mehta? [NYT]
People magazine keeps their racism subtle. [Jen Is Famous]
• Bonnie Fuller poses for the cover of Lifestyles magazine. And for the record, her face is frozen like that. [FishbowlNY]
• But at least the Bonnster's Toronto book party gave bloggers the chance to gorge themselves on chocolate-covered strawberries and mini-bruschetta. There's never too much when it comes to finger food! [OMG Blog]

Media Bubble: The 'Times' Don't Need No Stinking Investors

Jesse · 04/26/06 02:25PM

• Hey, Pinch, there's an upside to keeping your stock in the toilet: It's your chance to take the Times Co. private again. Who to fund the deal? Your buddy Steve Rattner, of course! [NYO]
• Did Jann Wenner try to finagle a discounted rate from the Strokes for the RS 1,000th issue party?? Or did the Strokes try to extort more money from Jann? Eh, who cares. [WWD]
• Bill Keller thinks Bushies are out to intimidate the press. You think? [NJ]
• More changes expected at Marie Clarie — which, somehow, the Post makes at least partially Bonnie Fuller's fault. [NYP]
• Because there's nothing this woman can't do, here's dating advice from Bonnie Fuller. [AMNY]
• Oh, sure, Primedia is a disaster of a company. But why does that mean it shouldn't spend $250k to help cover the cost of its CEO's apartment? [Footnoted]

Today on 'Today': Bonnie Fuller Doesn't Want to Talk About That

Jessica · 04/11/06 09:58AM

It's freaking Bonnie Fuller day around here: The AMI editorial director just sat down with Al Roker to discuss her new book, The Joys of Too Much: Blah Blah Blah. Before they even started with the requisite book plug, however, Al Roker asked the Bonnster about Jared Paul Stern's troubles with Ron Burkle, which she refused to talk about. Still, Roker referenced an old interview in which Stern noted that working at Star was akin to a "black hole." Roker asked Bonnie Fuller if she had any idea why Stern would say such a thing — she, of course, couldn't imagine why he would. "Star is a wonderful place to work," she declared. Especially if you like piss in your soup.

Gossip Roundup: Meredith Vieira's Tragic Past

Jessica · 04/10/06 11:10AM

• Before she suffered abuse at the hands of Star Jones, Meredith Vieira had an abusive boyfriend to deal with. As she heads to the Today show, these serious revelations unfortunately do not help us forget that she hosts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. [R&M]
• Meanwhile, would Soledad O'Brien be crazy enough to leave CNN to replace Vieira on The View? [Gatecrasher]
• More penny-pinching around AMI? After Celebrity Living crumbled last week, rumors swirl that Star and National Enquirer may be up for sale, and editorial director Bonnie Fuller's contract may not be renewed. If so, pity: We doubt her book sales will support Fuller's leather-clad lifestyle. [Page Six]
• Finally, a role up to par with Jessica Simpson's intellectual capabilities: she'll play CJ Parker — the character originally played by Pamela Anderson — in the Baywatch movie. [IMDb]
• If there's anything we don't want to imagine, it's Macauley Culkin musing on the literary life. [Lowdown]
• Naomi Campbell drops out of Diddy's "Celebrity Cooking Showdown" after being told she wouldn't be able to beat opponents with frying pans. [Page Six]

Media Bubble: The Joys of Renegotiating Your Contract

Jesse · 04/07/06 03:20PM

• Bonnie's rich AMI contract is up at the end of June, and — as one of her mags gets shut down and another's redesign is more or less undone — negotiations are underway. Great timing, eh? [NYP (second item)]
• Newspapers execs met in Chicago, surrounded by dinosaur skeletons. Sexy Jon Fine enjoys that metaphor, as he should. [BizWeek]
• Who does Spin hire to replenish its now-virtually-empty staff ranks? An alt-porn auteur and star, naturally. [FBNY]
• Injured ABC anchor Bob Woodruff sends note to colleagues, releases photo. We're very pleasantly surprised to see that he does, in fact, still look like an anchorman. [AP/USAT]
Forward politics writer E.J. Kessler to move to New York Post op-ed gig. Because people jump from socialist to conservative papers all the time. [Forward]
• All the standard kvetches about media? Wrong, wrong, and wrong, says Bill Powers. [NJ]
• Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of Pinch who we've attempted to saddle with the nickname Prince, to leave the Providence Journal for The Oregonian in Portland. Wonder where he'll end up? [Providence Phoenix]
NYT Congress reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg to become paper's White House reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• The Voice loses another, this time investigative reporter Jennifer Gonnerman. [Media Mob/NYO]
• Are Conde Nast editors being shut out of Devil Wears Prada screenings? Um, no. [WWD]

Media Bubble: There Is No News About Katie, and Yet Still She Is News

Jesse · 03/27/06 02:06PM

• Will Katie go to CBS? We continue to not really have any idea. [USAT]
• What did Bonnie Fuller learn from getting fired from Conde Nast? "Blatant disloyalty is never the smart course of action." Who knew? [NYT]
• Kurt Andersen thinks — hopes! — that the celebrity moment might finally be over. [NYM]
• Elizabeth Spiers is starting a blog about Wall Street. Also, she used to work here. [IWantMedia]
Esquire has a funny spoof in its new issue written by — who else? — a Foer brother, in this case champion memorizer Joshua. [WP]
• Simon Dumenco isn't sure newspapers will survive, and he can't believe it took the Times until now to get rid of the printed stock tables. [Ad Age]
• Jim Surowiecki thinks newspapers will survive, and he can't believe it took them until now to get rid of printed stock tables. [NYer]
WWD media reporter Jeff Bercovici breakfasts on spelt toast with almond butter and a home-brewed cappuccino. [Jossip]
• Syd Schanberg quit his job as the Village Voice's Press Clips columnist just after the New Times deal closed, feeling that the company was no longer interested in media criticism. Friday he won an award for his Voice media criticism. [VV]

Bonnie Fuller Just Wants to Share Her Knowledge

Jessica · 03/27/06 08:12AM

Damn Bonnie Fuller for writing that massively titled book of hers — over ten years since her initial rise to legendary monsterhood, the release of The Joys of Much Too Much : Go for the Big Life—The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted is the only justifiable reason that we're still subjected to profiles of AMI's queen bee. And so today brings yet another she's-a-tough-bitch article from the Sun, in which she divulges, "As a child, I liked to be bossy." How totally surprising. Also surprising is the revelation that Fuller just doesn't get it:

Gossip Roundup: Bad News for Lil' Kim's Boobs

Jessica · 03/02/06 11:52AM

• Rapper Lil' Kim, who's been serving time since September for perjury, is finding prison to be more tough than she expected: Her gargantuan breast implants are leaking. That's some definite street cred right there. [R&M]
Times reporter Warren St. John sells the movie rights to his articles uncovering the J.T. Leroy hoax for Harvey Weinstein. Expect New York mag, which explored the hoax before St. John made the ultimate declaration, to spontaneously combust with anger. [Page Six]
• Bonnie Fuller has invited Courtney Cox to shadow the AMI beast around the office for a day; Cox is preparing for her upcoming sitcom roll as a tabloid queen who magically aborts celebrities' babies. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Divorce is hard enough; divorce when you have a thing for trannies is even worse. [Page Six]
• If cracky singer Whitney Houston is indeed pregnant, Child Protective Services should probably start preparing now. [Scoop]

No Carnations for Bonnie Fuller

Jessica · 03/02/06 11:35AM

Like manna from heaven, the image at right appeared in our mailbox this morning (click to enlarge). It appears to be a misplaced receipt for a $400 order of flowers sent to AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller from her loving husband, Michael.

Media Bubble: You Go, Iran!

Jesse · 02/07/06 01:29PM

• Things we never thought we'd say: Iranians have a delightfully level-headed reaction to the Mohammed-cartoons brouhaha; the country's biggest paper will run a contest for best Holocaust cartoon, which is an entirely reasonable response. [Reuters via WP]
• We're not quite sure how we forget this yesterday, but sullen Simon Dumenco is even madder than usual, this time at Bonnie Fuller. Which seems sort of a waste of energy. [Ad Age]
• AOL gossips say Meredith Viera is now the top choice to replace Katie Couric on Today, should Katie take her clickety stilettos to CBS. They also say Today might go to four hours, with Campbell Brown anchoring parts, and that there's a 70 percent chance of a Katie-to-CBS switch. Which seems an really oddly specific. [TMZ]
Out magazine is so desperate for a new EIC five months after allegedly pro-baseball-player-dating Brandon Lemon left that now it's even considering straight candidates. You should know better, Out: Sure the straight guys will have the drink, and be a little flirty, but it's just too much work to get them to finally put out. [WWD]
• 90.7 million watched the Super Bowl, making it the most watched TV show in ten years. [THR]
• The increasingly touchy-feely WSJ is like "your boss at work — smart, well-connected, highly respected, passing judgment from afar — who suddenly asks you to hang out on the weekend," says Hamilton Nolan. [PR Week]
• AMI adopted new ABC circ rules early, and realized it would miss rate base on half its titles. The other publishers ain't taking the risk. [Ad Age]