Genevieve Jones, the only unemployed socialite in history to land on the front-page coverage of the Wall Street Journal (not including Paris Hilton, that is), and the woman dubbed the the "Girl of the Moment" by Vogue in March 2006, has finally scored a man with dinero. According to Peter Davis, she's dating Moises de la Renta, the (adopted) son of fashion tycoon Oscar de la Renta. Hold on tight, sweetheart. [Paper Mag]
The former CFO of Tommy Hilfiger's handbag licensing company pleaded guilty in court today to stealing $19 million from the company between 2000 and 2007. As part of the plea deal, Martin Bodner agreed to forfeit his home in Sands Point, an apartment in the city, and three cars. He's also facing up to 40 years in prison. [NYT/CityRoom]
Thank God for the Daily Mail. The British paper posted ridiculously ginormous photos of Jocelyne Wildenstein's face today, the woman who may have been to the plastic surgeon once or twice in her life and is also the ex-wife of the late billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein. Apparently Jocelyne was out and about in Beverly Hills with her youthful fashion designer boyfriend, Lloyd Klein, in tow. He also happens to be "moggy lover" according to the paper, an expression we hadn't heard of either until we looked it up. [Daily Mail]
♦ Does the financial meltdown mean the end of bottle service in New York? [DBTH, Gawker, GNML]
♦ A new study shows that Food Network hosts are pretty lousy at following food safety guidelines; Paula Deen, FYI, is the worst. [Super Chef via Eater]
♦ Death & Co.'s David Kaplan has gone to court to stop his building's landlord from evicting the bar over noise violations. [NYO]
♦ Anthony Bourdain enjoys eating "bootleg foods" like "illegal cheese." [Gothamist]
♦ Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern eats rancid cheese and fermented animal parts for a living and yet says he's never gotten sick on the job. [amNY]
♦ A new food magazine called Swallow is launching next month. [GS]
♦ Trader Joe's is opening its first Brooklyn outpost next Friday. [BP]
Roughly a third of Lehman's employees will get to hold on to their jobs: "Barclays PLC has reached an agreement to buy the U.S. investment bank and capital-markets businesses of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and as many as 9,000 Lehman employees will find jobs with the U.K. bank, according to people familiar with the situation." The deal will go before a New York bankruptcy court judge at 5 p.m. today; an official announcement won't be made until tomorrow morning. [WSJ]
Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni isn't very happy with Adam Tihany, the restaurant design maestro who crafted the look of Maccioni's own eateries but then "betrayed" him by coming up with the new look of arch-enemy Daniel Boulud's Daniel. "Adam Tihany will never do anything for me again," he starts off with Gael Greene. "Adam did five restaurants for me. He was always six months late and two million over budget... I should have 10% cent of everything Adam earns." [Insatiable Critic via Gothamist]
♦ NBC's Ben Silverman says he hasn't managed the "unrelenting press attention" as well as he could have, and he's doing better than most people assme, a sentiment echoed by his close pal, Donny Deutsch. [TVDecoder]
♦ Harbinger's Phil Falcone says he has no plans to dump his investment in the New York Times. [Reuters]
♦ MTV is pulling the plug on TRL. [WSJ]
♦ Mark your calendars: Jeanine Pirro's court show debuts next week. [HuffPo]
♦ Current and former staffers at the LA Times are planning to file suit against owner Sam Zell. [LA Observed]
♦ How writers in Hollywood are dealing with the "new comedic landscape." [NYO]
♦ Product placements have earned less airtime on network TV compared with the same period last year, according to Nielsen. [AdAge]
♦ How the financial meltdown will affect Hollywood. [THR]
♦ Jeff Zucker, Mel Karmazin and Steven Rattner weigh in on the state of the media biz. [Portfolio]
We've done it! We've figured out just what set into motion the financial crisis that has led to billions in losses, demolished two investment banks (so far), and led to tens of thousands of lost jobs. It all goes back to Friday, March 7th when sleazy club owner Simon Hammerstein, headband-wearing scenester Arden Wohl, gay party boy Derek Blasberg, heiress Amanda Hearst, and gala staple Claire Bernard turned up at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the closing bell. Clearly, their mere presence at the exchange unleashed some sort of vicious curse on the markets. Don't believe us? Below you'll find a chart that shows the price of Lehman Brothers since that fateful Friday—or "Black Friday" as the day will henceforth be known—and you'll have all the proof you need that this visit was what doomed the storied firm.
We thought we'd check in with the chipper young woman who was answering Lehman CEO Dick Fuld's phone last week and see if she was keeping up her positive attitude. (Yes, there is someone still in the building picking up Dick's line. We wondered about that, too.) It seems like it's a different lady taking calls today. And she doesn't sound nearly as perky, which might have something to do with the fact that Lehman employees don't know if they're still getting paid.
Ethan Hawke taking his dog for a walk ... Ashley Olsen leaving her apartment in the Village ... Whitney Port going for a stroll downtown ... Calvin Klein crossing the street ... Michelle Williams carrying daughter Matilda and a cup of coffee ... Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa filming a segment outside ... Liv Tyler peeking out of the front door of her apartment ... Katie Lee Joel heading into the Hearst building for a luncheon ... Tyra Banks leaving the same luncheon a little while later ... Joshua Jackson shooting scenes for his new show Fringe in Queens ... Kiefer Sutherland walking with a friend through the West Village ... Dita Von Teese making her way into Marc Anthony's party at the Bowery Hotel, around the same time Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounson showed up ... Celine Dion performing at Madison Square Garden ... Mary-Kate Olsen covering her face while walking downtown late at night ... and Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson leaving a dinner downtown.
Mort Zuckerman just appeared on CNN a few moments ago to discuss the meltdown on Wall Street and the Fed's decision to keep the interest rate unchanged. Anchor Rick Sanchez then proceeded to thank Mort for calling in and volunteering to appear on the air. Self-promotion: It's not just for Julia Allison!
One things we learned from BlackBook's interview with "executive/heiress" Ivanka Trump: that one of the causes she's particularly passionate about is her brother Eric's foundation. Who knew The Donald's youngest son from his marriage to Ivana was "dedicated to improving the lives of children battling life-threatening or debilitating medical conditions"? The Eric Trump Foundation has a website, which you can peruse here. A look at the Events section might explain why it was on Ivanka's mind: The foundation's annual golf outing is taking place this afternoon at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester.
Frank Bruni's takedown of Michael's last week is the gift that keeps on giving. Following up on his interview with the Observer yesterday, today David Patrick Columbia offers up a few more thoughts on the media hotspot on New York Social Diary, sharing a few details on his eating habits, because you know that's what you've been waiting for: "I am not a gourmand although I have a large and ongoing appetite. However, unless something is giving me attitude when I'm eating it, I tend to like what I am eating when ordered in a restaurant. Occasionally at one restaurant or another, I’ll have something that speaks to me, sings to me, but otherwise I am not persnickety. I rarely go to a restaurant for the food, but for the company." And there you have it. [NYSD]
We are living in unexpected times: Wall Street bankers are going broke, a black man might be the next president of the United States, David Foster Wallace has killed himself, James Frey hasn't, and now comes the news that pornography is no longer the most popular thing on the internet. We're scared! [Reuters]
The second most in-demand interview behind Sarah Palin? That would probably be Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, who watched as the firm he led for more than two decades crumbled to pieces yesterday. Since rumors about Lehman's demise gained steam last week, Fuld has kept a low profile. Lehman employees didn't hear from him when the company filed for bankruptcy yesterday, he's been largely absent from the office in the last 48 hours, and according to the Wall Street Journal he's surrounded himself with a more elaborate security detail in recent days, which makes sense considering about 25,000 people would love to sock him in the face right now. So where is he? At his $10.82 million house in Greenwich, where he can always play a little tennis or take a dip in the pool to distract himself from the fact that his reputation has been ruined. After the jump, a tour of Casa Fuld!
Serena Williams—who was seen palling around Fashion Week with André Leon Talley, leading to whispers that a Vogue feature must be pending—has sold a memoir to Jamie Raab-led Grand Central Publishing for $1.3 million. Presumably its main advice to aspiring tennis stars will be: "Have your father plot your success before you've even been conceived." [Crains]
♦ Benny Shabtai, the president of Raymond Weil and Di Modolo and a staple on the New York social scene, has slashed the price of his townhouse at 870 Park. The Robert A.M. Stern-designed home, which has been on-and-off the market since 2004 and was most recently listed with Paula Del Nunzio for $33 million in March 2008, is now listed with Carrie Chiang for a (much more modest) $26.75 million. You can see the listing here. [Cityfile]
♦ More flipping at the Plaza: Unit 1802, which was picked up by Barbara Gutmacher Girard for $4.74 million in March, has been re-listed for $6.95 million. [Curbed]
♦ Claude Wasserstein bought her penthouse at 995 Fifth Avenue for $34 million in an unfinished, "white-box condition." [Real Deal]
Everyone's favorite trophy girlfriend Dasha Zhukova continues to tantalize the media with her willingness to talk about her new Moscow art gallery, the Garage, but her refusal to talk about boyfriend Roman Abramovich. During an email interview with a Bloomberg reporter, the London-based 27-year-old declines to comment on her relationship with the Russian billionaire and is elusive even on the subject of art, although she does perk up when asked if the Garage will sell paintings: "Absolutely no selling of art at all!"
