Kate Hudson and A-Rod Went on a DateDoes it sound like that should have an exclamation point after it? Well, we’re not using any of those things today. Today’s gossip roundup shall stand on its own merits.
Chloë Sevigny Brings Insouciance to Atlantic CityAtlantic City is like, dur, we’ve been doing that for years. Plus, Martha Stewart wrestles an errant speaker system and Rafael Nadal tussles with Menudo, in our daily New York gossip roundup.
gossipmonger
Pack of Wild Models Descends on T.O.’s CheeseburgerThe models were so starved they snatched food from Dallas Cowboy Terrell Owens, plus, some dude dares calls Andy Warhol a “gnome,” and Chloë Sevigny continues to be Chloë Sevigny, in today’s short but delicious gossip roundup.
Chloë Sevigny Down! We Repeat, Chloë Sevigny Down!The indie actress is felled by a viral infection, Salman Rushdie would vote for Barack Obama, and writer Peter Davis cares too much about a socialite contest. All that and the rest of the gossip from New York’s tabloids today.
the sports section
Roger Federer Loves, Aces Pete SamprasAnna Wintour looked quite the chic cheerleader last night. Poised next to Rupert Murdoch, she watched her favorite Fashion Week buddy, Roger Federer, battle it out against tennis hero Pete Sampras at the sold-out Madison Square Garden. In fact, an assortment of celebrities —Tiger Woods, Chloë Sevigny, Regis Philbin, and a fresh-from-court Barry Diller —showed up to watch the dashing Federer and the legendary Sampras fight it out on the court. But while the two tennis greats were fierce during the game, they were friendly before, during a Q&A session in front of a VIP crowd in the NetJets private lounge, where they compared Wimbledon wins, private-plane experiences, “favorite strokes” (they both like their serves), and training schedules. Federer says he plays for four to five hours a day, in addition to body conditioning and routine massages. “Yeah, it’s pretty much the same for me,” the now-retired Sampras agreed, then paused and said he was kidding. “To be honest, I get bored after about an hour.” When asked if he had any advice for the reigning champ Federer, Sampras smiled: “Sure. Quit now.” Then Federer beat him. —Katie Goldsmith
in other news
Chloë Sevigny Has a Bathroom SurpriseBlackBook just posted an interview with Chloë Sevigny, in which they ask her the age-old question: New York or L.A.? Chloë gives some pretty compelling reasons to live here in the city, as opposed to La La Land. They include “obnoxious lesbian neighbors” who are “always playing Trivial Pursuit,” and some really, really scary bugs that crawl into your house:
“One night I found this thing. It was in the bathroom, which is downstairs [it’s a two-story house], and it was it was like something from a David Cronenberg movie, and huge — huge! Or, I thought, maybe an alien had stopped in, and then gone into my bathroom to have a miscarriage. It’s probably not something you say in an interview, or maybe ever, because it’s incredibly embarrassing — but it’s pretty funny, so I will. I was so, so scared, I mean utterly terrified, that even after it was gone, for so long I wouldn’t go in there, and in the middle of the night, rather than risk it, I would pee off my upstairs porch. Turned out it’s called a potato bug. It’s the size of my fucking hand.”
Um, wow. We are irrationally afraid of bugs, so this is a really good reason for us not to live in Los Angeles. Also the fact that if you’re walking around on the sidewalk, you run the risk of getting peed on from above by Chloë Sevigny.
Chloe Sevigny: Teacher’s Pet! [BlackBook]
gossipmonger
Diane Sawyer Forgets to Ask Katie Holmes About the HubbaspermDiane Sawyer interviewed Katie Holmes on Good Morning America yet neglected to ask her about the rumor that she was impregnated with L. Ron Hubbard’s sperm. New York Giants Plaxico Burress, Antonio Pierce, and Ruben Droughns went to Home nightclub in Manhattan after flying back from Dallas and ordered $1,000 of Bacardi, vodka, and Champagne, but forgot to tip their waitress. Waiters at Brasserie 44 in the Royalton Hotel thought they discovered Frank Bruni’s notebook, but it turned out to belong to someone else (and they slipped in some Bruni ass-kissing to boot!). Jil Scott picked up a male model at an Allure fashion shoot and took him to Nobu. Keith Olbermann’s quote to Playboy that “Fox News is worse than Al-Qaeda” did not go over well with many of the magazine’s readers.
party lines
All Arden Wohl Wants for Christmas Is a Smooth FrenchWhat with the wintry weather, and fashion folks being so skinny, there was much discussion of how to stay warm at last night’s party for fashion magazine Fanzine137 and Rodarte held at the Park. “I think you need a lover over the winter because then you can get snowed in,” said Leelee Sobieski. Does she have one? “No. You’ve got to be choosy. Life is too short.” Her BFF Arden Wohl, who had been talking with Chloë Sevigny, agreed. It has to be the right lover, she said. “Some men are kissing monsters! They do this” (she stuck out her tongue) “or they do this” (she stuck out her tongue and wiggled it around) “but all you want is a smooth French!” We asked her who the bad Frencher was. “Some guy!” she shouted. No, really, who? Finally, Wohl told us. “Zach Braff! Zach Braff is a bad kisser!” Ha! We suspected as much. “I haven’t kissed him!” Sevigny hastened to add. “Thank goodness.” —Blythe Sheldon
Earlier: Zach Braff and Piper Perabo Can’t Fight the Moonlight
it just happened
Cable News Makes a Hostage Situation Very Confusing The cable-news outlets have a funny way of turning a potentially scary situation into a media farce. About an hour after “confirming” that both hostages have been released from Hillary Clinton’s Rochester HQ in New Hampshire, CNN is now saying there’s a third hostage still inside — which would explain why there’s been little recent news from the scene. As with every real-time news event, the media are bound to change the story several times as facts get settled, except this time we can’t even agree on the story’s genre. Is this a scary situation with a real bomb and hostages? Or are we now looking at a guy with no hostages and a fake bomb strapped to his chest? If it’s the former, you’ve got perhaps massive repercussions throughout the election cycle. If it’s the latter, you’ve got a deranged remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Really, we just want to know how much we should be freaking out here.
Meanwhile, MSNBC says the suspect is a fellow named Leeland Eisenberg. Start counting how many times that bit of info changes. Also, his son-in-law says “he had been drinking” today. Oh, who hasn’t ended up as the focus of the 24-hour news cycle after a few too many vodka-tonics?
Earlier: Breaking: Man With Bomb Takes Hostages at Clinton’s N.H. HQ
Update: They got him! The last hostage was just released and the suspect is in police custody…
intel
Two Gawker Editors Decide Not to Be Douche Bags Holy poop you guys, did you get that IM from the intern down the hall? Something totally crazy is going on at Gawker!! Writer Emily Gould and managing editor Choire Sicha, are QUITTING. Sicha is that hot gay who helped shape the site as its second solo editor from 2003 to 2005. He left to work at the Observer and then came back early this year. Gould has been working on the site since November of last year. Neither have jobs lined up, we hear. SO BRAVE. This certainly marks the end of an era for the site, which (as Vanessa Grigoriadis pointed out in her recent story in New York) has been making a shift toward an emphasis on comments and page views over edited content in recent months. It also comes on the heels of the departure of another Gawker mainstay, Alex Balk, who left for Radar magazine’s Website recently. Perhaps more interesting, Gould and Sicha’s departure puts today’s Who’s Quitting Gawker Media tally at four: Valleywag correspondent Megan McCarthy has also announced that she’s leaving the Silicon Valley blog for the warm corporate arms of Wired, while Jalopnik founding editor Mike Spinelli has removed himself from the blog’s daily operations and is instead acting as editor-at-large, which he himself acknowledges is an “inflated” title. Obviously the timing of these departures is coincidental, but still.
What does this all mean? And more important, were you the first one of your friends to find out? And, wait, you commented, right? Wow, anyway, we have no idea what happens next. Who will they hire?
That sound you hear is the thumping of a thousand editorial assistants running to their apartment roofs to take a picture of themselves in a bathing suit.
A Long Dark Early Evening of the Soul With Keith Gessen [Gawker]
Related: Everybody Sucks: Gawker and the Rage of the Creative Underclass [NYM]
21 questions
Lydia Hearst Still Thinks Stephen Colbert Should Run for President Name: Lydia Hearst.
Job: Lydia is not just an heiress! She’s a model, a columnist for Page Six the Magazine, and designer for Puma, most recently of the “Lydia” bag. She takes these jobs very seriously but remains endearingly grateful to her great-grandfather, William Randolph Hearst, for making it so she doesn’t have to have them if she doesn’t want to.
Age: 23
Neighborhood: Columbus Circle
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
William Randolph Hearst.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
Truffle macaroni and cheese from Lure.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
To tell you everything that I do would take more than one sentence. I have three full-time jobs: high-fashion modeling, writing, and designing. I am a firm believer that there are 24 useful hours in every day.
gossipmonger
We’ll Make It, I Swear … to the Governor’s Mansion?Jon Bon Jovi lives in Soho but is keeping a house in Jersey because he may run for governor there one day. Alec Baldwin is worried that Hillary Clinton won’t vote “no” on a $10 billion farm bill that subsidizes farmers who provide fattening foods to schools. Kelly Ripa claims she treats her butt like her breasts by buying really tight jeans and pushing her cheeks together. Cindy Adams claims that Time Warner may be looking to sell People magazine and In Style to Hachette. A stylist for Frederic Fekkai had to wear rubber gloves before shampooing a tweaked-out, sweaty Brandon Davis. High-end TV network Plum TV laid off a bunch of people and may be closing. Makeup maven Olivia Chantecaille has a new banker boyfriend. Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant are still buddies and attended a dinner party at the Upper East Side townhouse of Valentino.
company town
Welcome, Hedge-Fund Backlash!FINANCE
• Not all hedge funds are profitable. UBS is closing its fund, Dillon Read Capital Management, after a loss of $124 million in the first quarter. [Reuters via NYT]
• Ken Moelis, who is leaving as UBS’s investment banking president in June, is trying to staff his boutique investment bank with former colleagues like Navid Mahmoodzadegan and Warren Woo. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
• The New York Fed warns that the current hedge-fund climate puts the economy at risk for a Long Term Capital–esque crisis. [DealBook/NYT]
gossipmonger
Ann Bass Was RobbedSocialite Ann Bass, ex-wife of billionaire investor Sid Bass, and artist boyfriend Julian Lethbridge were robbed at their tony Connecticut estate. Richard Nixon’s daughter Tricia couldn’t bring herself to attend Frost/Nixon. Rutgers women’s basketball coach Vivian Stringer signed a lucrative deal to write an autobiography. Alec and Stephen Baldwin split some macaroni and cheese while bowling. Madonna ex Carlos Leon hooked up with model Kat Forseca at the Bowery Hotel. Josh Lucas hooked up with a writer from Harper’s Bazaar at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Christine Ebersole once bribed a cop with $100. Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony plan to file libel suits against the National Enquirer in Europe, where their odds of victory are higher. Chloë Sevigny writes about her wild youth in the introduction to a friend’s memoir.