liars

Alex McCord Using Page Six to Sell Her Dumb Book?

Richard Lawson · 12/22/08 01:02PM

Earlier this morning we bemoaned the fact that Alex from Real Housewives New York was writing a book. An advice book, about parenting. Ugh, and hah! But maybe we didn't need to worry after all. A tipster from inside the book world tells us that Alex (and presumably her dopish, gayish husband Simon) had an agent shop the stupid thing around, but no one bit. All the publishing houses told her to come back once season two of the Bravo reality slosh started and maybe something could happen, but for the time being it's a no go.

Letterman Nails McCain On Terror Pal

Ryan Tate · 10/16/08 10:18PM

Here's a preview of John McCain on Late Show tonight. He told host David Letterman, "I screwed up," then laughed and did a little "gee whiz" shrug, and made an awkward joke about being tortured in Vietnam. "What can I say?!" the Republican presidential nominee asked. Um, maybe give a reason why you lied about having to fly back to DC when you bailed on Letterman's show last time? Apparently that wasn't in the cards. Letterman later hit McCain for paling around with Watergate burglar and would-be firebomber G. Gordon Liddy, even though McCain has slammed Barack Obama for an arguably more distant relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers. By the end of the segment McCain appeared to be in full retreat on the Ayers issue. Witness McCain statement at the end of the clip after the jump (along with more bizarre face-pulls).

Chaunce Hayden's Imaginary Gossip Factory

Hamilton Nolan · 09/02/08 11:30AM

We have some natural sympathy for anybody locked in a battle against Page Six. Although that sympathy recedes when the P6 opponent is Chaunce Hayden, the rad tat-sporting editor of Jersey gossip rag Steppin Out who was denounced by P6 boss Richard Johnson for feeding him bad tips. Because Chaunce's rage is now leading him to send out mass email blasts about "news" that he, uh, just kinda made up! Or maybe he's always done that? Either way, now he's pissed off the Post even more. Here's the full story of one errant shot in the gossip war: Today Chaunce sent out a big email blast that "New York Post, Page Six scribe, Marianne Garvey, has been fired!" Chaunce wrote that Garvey used to write for him at Steppin Out (which she describes as two pieces when she was in college for $40 each), and that she had recently turned down a cover at the mag that instead went to Shallon Lester at the Daily News, so maybe Richard Johnson was so mad about it that he fired her? But definitely, she was fired. According to Chaunce. Actually Garvey left to take a job at In Touch—which she announced more than two weeks ago. By all accounts she left on her own terms, and wasn't fired. When this was pointed out to Chaunce, he sent out a "statement":

The Creepy Brit Who's Destroying The Honorable Craft Of Celebrity Journalism

Hamilton Nolan · 06/18/08 10:31AM

OK! is the celebrity magazine that is the most willingly manipulated by celebrity flacks, which is really saying something. So it's perfectly appropriate that the magazine just promoted sleazy former celebrity uberflack Rob Shuter to its executive editor position. That's because Shuter is skilled at doing the two things that OK! is most famous for: lying on behalf of celebrities, and losing other people's money. Even he, the great fabulist, couldn't write a more sickening script than this.

The PR Industry Will Not Stand For These Outrageous Criticisms!

Hamilton Nolan · 06/02/08 03:58PM

The PR industry loves to get riled up any time someone takes what might be construed as an unjustified shot at its awful reputation. This is because there are already so many perfectly justified criticisms of PR that any argument not directly linked to a huge public scandal gives the industry a rare chance to get on its high horse. That's precisely what's going on today, after CBS analyst Andrew Cohen went on air yesterday with a scathing but overbroad rant calling the entire PR industry dirty liars, in the wake of lying former Bush flack Scottie McClellan's book. How dare CBS be so mean! The Public Relations Society of America fired back with a mealy-mouthed letter declaring "truth and accuracy are the bread and butter of the public relations profession." This is the same PRSA that didn't feel the need to say anything about McClellan's admitted lies themselves. So we have an ill-considered commentary, and a hypocritical response. A perfect embodiment of PR! Video of Cohen's rant, after the jump.

Roger Clemens: Baseball's Eliot Spitzer

Hamilton Nolan · 04/29/08 09:42AM

Here on day two of the Roger Clemens Infidelity Scandal And Schadenfreude Festival Of '08, it's becoming more clear that the brawny former Yankees ace pitcher and full time jerk did in fact cheat on his wife with the wild country singer Mindy McCready. Because now she's admitted it! McCready said the two did have an ongoing affair, although the sex didn't start until she was of legal age. They first met when she was only 15, (Miley Cyrus joke). But the most entertaining aspect of this scandal is how Clemens—heroic, honored, self-righteous, dismissive of critics, a King of New York—is turning into an uncanny baseball version of another recently fallen hero: Eliot Spitzer.

Newspaper Feature, Like Story Of Jesus, Is Fiction

Hamilton Nolan · 03/31/08 12:41PM

On March 23, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an uplifting story about "Virginia Gillis," who had lost her perfect life when her husband started using methamphetamines, burned down their house, and attacked her with a straight razor, cutting her throat "almost all the way through." After a stint of homelessness, she slowly rebuilt her life, and now works as a chef at a homeless program, feeding hundreds of people a week who are stuck in the position that she once was. The paper compares her story to the resurrection of Jesus Christ—this was an Easter-themed feature. But further investigation revealed that, like Jesus, Virginia Gillis' story had a bit of mythology in it. Such as: her name, her age, her location, her outstanding warrants, and everything else about her story! It might have been easier if they just told us what was true in the original, rather than false. The entire, and truly epic, editor's note from page one of yesterday's paper [via Romenesko], after the jump.

Malcolm Gladwelling at The Post

ian spiegelman · 03/29/08 02:18PM

Super-famous New Yorker writer and liar Malcolm Gladwell isn't the only reporter who tried to sneak funny bits of prose into his articles for a respected newspaper. (Except didn't he not do that? I'm confused.) Anyhoo, it's a fun old game to play, and we used to play it Page Six. My fellow former Sixer Chris Wilson and I used to daydream about getting the term "Bukkake Bandit" onto the page, which, in 2003/2004, was no easy trick. In fact, it never even got past Richard Johnson. Another crusade was to get the Google definition of Senator Rick Santorum's name into the Post back when that was still new and fun.

No More One Source Profiles, Says NYT

Hamilton Nolan · 03/06/08 11:30AM

Now that lying author Margaret Seltzer has made the New York Times look like useful idiots for printing a fawning profile of her in which she spouted her stock lies about her ties to the hood, the paper is pushing for some changes. Standards Editor Craig Whitney emails the newsroom today that they shouldn't run any more single-source profiles of people who aren't well known, because they could turn out to be lying schmucks like Margaret Seltzer and make the paper look stupid all over again. Makes sense. Points to the Times for doing some kinda thing, at least! The full internal email, reprinted below.

Esquire Writes Heath Ledger's Fake Memoir

Nick Douglas · 03/05/08 11:54PM

What were the last moments of Heath Ledger's life like? Esquire doesn't have the exclusive! So their reporter Lisa Taddeo added a gimmick to her story about the actor's final days: She wrote her story in the first and second person as the late actor, using Chuck Palahniuk's dramatic narrative style (which is pretty close to Esquire's default). The magazine cleverly introduces the piece as "reported fiction," which means we don't get to know which details of Taddeo's piece are true. So why didn't she just invent the whole thing? That seems easier. [Photo: Getty]

Famous Lying Chef Properly Canned For The Winter

Hamilton Nolan · 02/29/08 02:20PM

Celebrity Food Network chef Robert Irvine, revealed to be a big fat liar recently by a St. Petersburg Times investigation, has been let go by the network. He spent his last day as host of "Dinner: Impossible" in Washington, DC, cooking Japanese food for a party of 250. Maybe he can go back into the Army, they always need fast cooks like that. [TMZ]

'Newsweek' Calls John McCain a Liar

Pareene · 02/22/08 02:22PM

Reporter Michael Isikoff's story of John McCain's unethical relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman is up at Newsweek! It's been speculated that news that Isikoff was working on the story is one of the many factors that prompted the New York Times to "rush" their version into print earlier this week. Isikoff's story comes with a nice little mini-bombshell: proof that McCain already lied in his "sweeping denial" of the Times story!

Massive Celebrity Chef Also Massive Liar

Hamilton Nolan · 02/17/08 07:26PM

Robert Irvine, the nerdy, crewcut, heavily muscled celebrity chef who rose to fame with his show "Dinner: Impossible" on the Food Network, may be suffering from a serious case of pants-on-fire. Irvine had big plans to transform the fine dining scene in St. Petersburg, FL with two new fancy restaurants. He ran around town entering partnerships, hiring consultants, and generally proclaiming himself to be a food VIP. But the local paper noticed that, three months after the scheduled opening date, the new restaurants are still unfinished construction sites. So they did some investigating [SP Times], and it turns out that most of Irvine's big-shot credentials are just a huge pile of unseasoned poop!

Emily Gould · 12/31/07 12:59PM

It is the greatest story of the year. A six-year-old girl who won tickets to a "Hannah Montana" concert by beginning an essay "My daddy died this year in Iraq" may not get to see Miley Cyrus live and in person after all—her dad didn't die in Iraq one bit! Awesome. [AP]

Rudy Giuliani Is A Welfare Queen!

Pareene · 11/02/07 10:05AM

Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of 9/11, began running a radio ad in New Hampshire this week that's all about how he survived his prostrate cancer without any help from the government. "I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine." Of course, because Rudy Giuliani is saying those things, each sentence contains its own egregious lie. Even the first one!

Neel Shah Lies To Girls About Why Guys Lie

Emily Gould · 09/07/07 11:30AM

Today's teenage girls have some serious ish to contend with, and it cannot be helping that our former intern and current Radarer Neel Shah is being allowed to give them advice under the auspices of his unofficial position as Spokesman For Boys. This month in Cosmogirl, he explains the five reasons "Why Guys Lie." For starters: "See, unlike girls, when guys lie, we're not really thinking about the benefits or consequences to what we're saying." This is a lie. The article is full of lies, actually!

Out of awards, PodTech listed the prettiest boys in school

Nick Douglas · 07/05/07 02:55PM

Remember way back in grade school, when a gaggle of girls would write a list of the boys in their class that they wanted to marry? Video network PodTech did the same thing. According to a former employee, after the podcast company ran out of statuettes for its "Vloggie" awards, the head of the company wrote a list of the people PodTech was courting to join its company. The people on the list got statuettes first, and some of the rest got stalled until the company could buy new awards and pretend there was no problem. Man, hope that strategy helped them attract some great talent! Here's our source's firsthand account.