New York — Vanity Fair has pushed the envelope of cattiness with its latest profile of Canadian-born celebrity magazine editor Bonnie Fuller. In an article in the March issue — on newsstands today — Fuller is described as a paranoid, merciless tyrant whose cold-blooded ambition drives her employees into the ground and who, despite the sex-obsessed character of her publications, is ''almost a sexual puritan.''
The seven-page article — as gossipy as Fuller's own newly revamped Star magazine — is perhaps the most devastating portrait of Fuller ever to appear in a major publication, and it carries enough nasty allegations to keep readers glued to the end, including accusations that former employees once fouled a complimentary meal she had sent home in a company car.Writer Judith Newman quotes the food fouler explaining, "She was just being so, so horrible to so many people and ... look, I swear to God, we're really nice people. You just don't know what we went through." A co-conspirator, "had a bad cold, so she, um, pulled some stuff out of her nose. That went in the mini soufflé chocolate cakes. And the loaf of bread ... that went inside my pants."
Another former assistant notes with glee that the staff publicly humiliated Fuller without her knowledge.
"Bonnie had gotten a Michael Kors dress sent to her, and it was wool," goes the story. "It had a tag on the arm that said, 'Lavare a Mano' — 'Wash by Hand' in Italian. It was supposed to be snipped off but she didn't seem to know that. She had this tag on her sleeve and she loved wearing this minidress. I knew what it meant, but I didn't tell her. She wore it like that and I was like, That's for keeping me here till 11."
Even Fuller's reported best friend, Jane Hess, is quoted as saying, "She's like a shark."
The article was awaited breathlessly by many of her former employers.
Fuller co-operated with the article, posing for a photograph and allowing the reporter access to the editorial process, and her mother gave an interview.
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Fuller tersely replied that she had no comment on the result.
The feature is dolled up in a faux-tabloid style reminiscent of editor Graydon Carter's days at Spy magazine, boasting a Star-magazine inspired "Fashion Oops!" photo box with an ugly shot of Fuller in the type of generous shorts favoured by suburban moms. Sprinkled throughout the layout are other unflattering snaps of Fuller from her days when, as a young fashion reporter with The Toronto Star in 1979, she posed for photos to accompany her articles.
The Vanity Fair reporter plumbs the psychological depths of Fuller's manic drive, suggesting that she was "scarred forever" when her parents separated during her childhood. The experience taught Fuller that, even now, with a base salary of about $1.5-million (U.S.) and stock options that could double that, "I can't relax, absolutely not."
One of Fuller's former bosses observes, "How many people are editor-in-chief of five magazines in the space of 13 years? And how many women in a position like that also have four children? There is something inside Bonnie that is always screaming next."
Newman adds that Fuller has plenty of critics among purists who complain that her sex-driven formula of celebrity and fashion obsession is killing the appetite for real journalism, that, "this pretty, earnest woman with a flat-affect voice and sad clubbed-baby-seal eyes has become the symbol for the End of Journalism as We Know It — not so much a beneficiary of our culture's debased taste as a creator of it."
