Behind the Lizzie Grubman Story

[aphelion]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/600760.asp
Crazy column about the Lizzie story. Basically how nobody wants to take it national because of her status and her dad. One example is how comments about her get deleted on the Vogue forums, while other celebrity rumors and trash is left alone.

Funny part is how her PR firm insists her name is pronounced the classy-sounding "Groobman" instead of the lowbrow "Grubman."

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[momadance]

there have been articles in time magizine, thats national

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drink 8 oz. of water a day, and be one of the 25% of Americans to be properly hydrating yourself

[NYCclub15]

[/B][/QUOTE]
Funny part is how her PR firm insists her name is pronounced the classy-sounding "Groobman" instead of the lowbrow "Grubman."

[/B][/QUOTE]

LMAO at that one....SO PATHETICALLY TRUE!

[sd]

Here's a game for all you Lizzie fans.
http://www.geocities.com/mercfilms/index.html

Now we've got our own east coast OJ.

[sanjay]

Holy shit SD, thats fucking hilarious

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http://www.rhythm-addiction.com

[shugabooga]

aphelion - i can't open your link...is this the same thing:


July 16, 2001


Dear Readers:

When Gen-X Publicity Princess Lizzie Grubman mowed a 2001 Mercedes SUV into a crowd outside a South Hampton night club earlier this month, it wasn't just another fender bender. It was the clashing of cultures.

Lizzie insists it was a "tragic accident." She says she feels terrible about the 16 people who were hurt. One of the injured isn't ready to forgive: the bouncer at whom Lizzie allegedly shouted "F--- you, white trash." Nor are the victims who have filed the multimillion dollar lawsuits against her.

"Am I going to hell for loving this story?" a friend e-mailed me. "Is she not the Leona Helmsley of the Moomba Generation? Oh, my dear, she must PAY for her uppityness! She must suffer for the sins of all snotty-tot Manhattan celebrity culture janissaries!"

My phone has been ringing off the hook and my e-mail has been clogged with Lizzie Grubman updates and Lizzie Grubman anecdotes and Lizzy Grubman jokes.

"Halle Berry is starting the Lizzie Grubman defense fund."

"Lizzie Grubman ran over my dog because he's not a pure breed."

A headline reading: "JAP Attacks Hamptons; 16 Injured."

Someone has bought the rights to the Web domain LizzieGrumbmansucks.com and is planning to sell it to the highest bidder.

But even as her enemies revel in the schadenfreude, some columnists are scrambling to defend Lizzie. After all, she is a good source of items. More importantly, she's hired powerhouse flack Howard Rubenstein, an even better source of items. And most importantly of all, she's a great source of party invites.

Lizzie's people have desperately been calling reporters to set the record straight. And by the way, Lizzie's people say, the correct pronunciation is not the low-class-sounding "Grub" (rhymes with flub), but rather the more classy-sounding "Groob" (rhymes with "lube.") These are important PR distinctions.

People outside the N.Y.C./L.A. axis may not know who Lizzie Grubman is, but to those in the your-nothing-if-you're-not-famous crowd, Lizzie was the personification of the celebrity-obsessed, spin-meistering, image-is-all 1990s.

Her father, Allen Grubman, is one of the country's top entertainment lawyers, representing clients such as Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Sting, Elton John and Billy Joel.

When Lizzie got married to Eric Gotoff, an associate at her father's firm in October 1995, it was estimated to cost between $300,000 and $500,000. The ballroom at the Pierre was decorated with 10,000 white roses. The ceiling was covered with wild orchids and the floor was custom painted. A massive ice sculpture of a sturgeon held $12,000 worth of the world's most expensive caviar. And just to prove that money can't buy taste, music was supplied by The Village People.

The marriage itself was short lived. "One day for each $1,000 spent on the wedding," a friend of Lizzie's once estimated.

Lizzie's PR clients included people like Britney Spears and Sony honcho Tommy Mottola. But in all the dozens of times I've called Grubman's office, I've never once gotten a comment from her. Not even a denial or a "no comment." Lizzie, in my experience, doesn't like to respond to reporters' inquiries. She likes to plant items. She likes to spin. She likes to throw parties. She was part of the stealth campaign that helped publicize "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." She thought it was cool to invite Monica Lewinsky to parties to spice them up.

Lizzie represented Moomba, the New York restaurant that produced more gossip than customers. Leonardo DiCaprio ate there. There were rumors Mooba paid him to. Lizzie had her 30th birthday there with Mick Jagger. When Ellen DeGeneres and then-sweetie Anne Heche went to Moomba and were playing tonsil hockey (as we gossips like to so eloquently describe it), Lizzie made sure that all the gossip columnists knew about it. But when Moomba abruptly closed earlier this year, angry investors demanded to know why they weren't warned in advance and why the quintessential New York hotspot had made no money. Grubman had no comment.

When Lizzie was the publicist for Ford Model's "Supermodel of the World" competition in 1996, a journalist asked her if there were any contestants from New Zealand.

"I'm not good with the globe," she said. "Where is New Zealand near?"

"Australia," the reporter helpfully informed her.

"There's one from Austria," Lizzie said. "That's not it, is it?"

This is a woman who New York magazine put on its cover in December 1998, dubbing her the Queen of New York Night Life."

It's also fitting that this quintessential culture clash/crash took place in the Hamptons -- a place where harried, status-neurotic Manhattanites go on the weekend and get even more harried and status neurotic. The Hamptons were once an exclusive playground to the old-money rich, but have become the favorite retreat for newly minted billionaires and celebs. It's been called the Hollywood of the East; regulars include Robert DeNiro, Steven Spielberg, Alec Baldwin, Jerry Seinfeld.

With all that money and ego in one place, there are bound to be some ugly scenes. It was in East Hampton that Martha Stewart drove her truck into developer Harry Macklowe's landscaper, nearly killing him, for planting "inappropriate greenery" on the border of her property.

It's where the noveau riche routinely plop down $10,000 to $100,000 on fully mature trees to make their brand new estates look like old money. It's where a producer asked a landscape architect I know to turn his beach house into a Southern plantation-style estate, complete with cypress trees and Spanish moss. The landscaper tried to explain that the climate and soil wouldn't sustain that sort of vegetation. "Import the soil!" the producer yelled at her. "Create the climate! If they can do it in movies, I can do it in my own home!"

I used to summer frequently in the Hamptons, but I always clashed with both the locals and the weekenders. The townies who were being treated rudely by the well-to-do used to drive by and throw beer cans at me, hollering "Yuppie Scum." A woman I visited once got angry with me for tossing a ball to the 5-year-old son of her live-in help. "It will make them feel too equal," she impatiently explained. I would come home from the weekend a neurotic mess.

My long-suffering boyfriend, John, had a place in the Hamptons, but for him, an exciting celeb citing is running into John Updike. He knew we needed a change of scenery after I threw a hissy fit for not being invited to one of Sean "Puffy" Combs's "White Parties." (The color refers to the dress code, not the guests.)

"I thought you didn't expect to get invited because of all the snarky things you've written about him," John gingerly said.

"That's not the point!" I snapped.

"I thought you said that spending time at Puffy's mansion and listening to blaring rap music was your idea of the seventh circle of hell," John said.

"You just don't get it," I said my voice rising. "I wanted to be able to say I turned it down!!!"

John detected a serious case of celebrity addiction and status anxiety. That week, he saw a Rolls Royce in South Hampton with the license plate: LOTTA BUCKS. He immediately put his house on the market.

We moved to a nearby town, East Moriches, which is completely unchic and whose main claim to fame is that it's where TWA Flight 800 crashed. But it's near enough to the Hamptons so that I can periodically make trips there to remind myself why I continue to write snarky items about these people.

I just better not get in Lizzie's way. I'm the type she likes to mow down. And I am, as always,

Your Faithful Scooper,


Jeannette Walls

[aphelion]

I see you're on top of the story Yup, same one....

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[vixenfoxxy]

That game is FUCKING HILARIOUS!!!

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[shugabooga]

*bump* i just think this story is worth reading it's so funny.

[monical]

it really is hillarious...the new story today is that these people are more seriously hurt than the press is letting on...couple of the girls have broken pelvises, and might not be able to have kids...do you realize what kind of suit that would be?? i was actually there, and saw the aftermath, and it looked like a bomb had went off - i've never seen so many firetrucks, police, ambulances, etc...in my life...i'm really suprised that nobody got killed