Downloaded from YTS.MX
[indistinct chatter]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
MORGAN OLIVIA ROSE: Before, God was a distant, unseen character.
Through Christianity, God was made man.
It is no surprise that 2,000 years later,
after years of worshiping monarchs and majesties,
we now worship the celebrity, the American God.
♪ Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand playing ♪
Our fair island of Manhattan has played host
to some glamorous women and their husbands,
titans of American industry,
founders of standard oil,
builders of railroads,
fathers of finance, shipping, and steel.
In the past, these heiresses operated behind a gilded curtain,
but today's socialites transform themselves
into idols to be worshiped,
images to be consumed.
This is American Divinity.
♪ Take Me Out continues ♪
♪ I say, don't you know ♪
♪ You say you don't know ♪
♪ I say ♪
♪ Take me out ♪
♪ I say you don't show ♪
♪ Don't move, time is slow ♪
♪ I say ♪
♪ Take me out ♪
♪
Birthright guarantees access to their world.
If you spin the right story, they might let you in the door.
But at what cost?
♪
I think the number one thing that an aspiring socialite has to do
is lose weight.
A girl who can't fit into a sample size is basically no good to a designer.
Hire a publicist, even if it bankrupts your daddy.
He'll make more money next year, but your fame will last forever.
[static]
How to break into New York Society 101.
The very first step is that you need to have money,
and it's a very good thing to give some of that money away
to the right committees.
The history of social aspiration in New York City, in modern times,
can probably be traced back to the 1890s,
the so-called Gilded Age.
[static]
That was a moment when
the great industrial fortunes were being created.
When steel barons and the railroad barons
were some of the richest people in the United States.
Finance was coming into its own as a huge source of wealth.
Names like Carnegies, Mellon, Vanderbilt, Schermerhorn, Astor
were the great families of that time.
[static]
Historically, the American social structure detested publicity
and in order to be of social rank,
you looked down on that kind of vulgar self-aggrandizement.
There's the famous expression
that you should only have your name in the papers three times,
when you're born, when you're married, and when you die.
And it really started to change in the 1990s
when these younger generations of the big families
began to realize that celebrity could be used
for their own advantages.
They were the Miller sisters, they were the Boardman sisters,
and these were relatively well-behaved young women
who led glamorous lives and they went to nightclubs
and were often in the gossip columns or the social pages.
And then like a double bombshell dropped Paris and Nicky Hilton.
[indistinct excited crowd chatter]
When Paris and Nicky arrived on the red carpet scene,
they were an instant sensation.
- REPORTER: Paris. - What's up?
BEN WIDDICOMBE: The readers couldn't get enough of them.
The gossip columns wanted to know more.
[indistinct chatter]
They loved talking to reporters.
They made themselves available to photographers.
And that made them stars.
PAPARAZZO: Paris, give us a wave, Paris!
You rock, girl.
PATRICK MCMULLAN: I like to say, I mean,
I'm kidding, but I kind of invented the Hilton sisters.
I would see them and I knew their mother, Kathy, very well
from old days and from being around
and she'd say, "Oh, if you see the girls, be nice to them,"
'cause they didn't really know anybody.
They didn't really grow up in New York,
so I taught them how to pose.
PAPARAZZO: Paris, to your left! To your left!
KELLY CUTRONE: I saw Paris have her first visit with André Leon Talley,
and she stood up on a banquette in a blue dress
and she was like--
I don't even know who trained her,
but she had every fucking frame completely thought out.
And just in that moment, I realized like everything's gonna change.
[crowd cheering]
LOLA OGUNNAIKE: In the day, I used to be in these club streets
and so was Paris Hilton. [laughs]
And so, she was figuring out
how to turn being Paris Hilton into a business.
She wanted to create storylines around her,
so she would have a best friend,
and then she would change the best friend.
She would have a little Chihuahua and then the Chihuahua would disappear.
She was committed to constructing a narrative around her
that would keep people watching.
[indistinct chatter]
All of these girls are Paris Hilton's child, okay?
She laid the blueprint.
BEN: Suddenly, the thing to be
was to be the good-looking daughter of great privilege.
PHOTOGRAPHER 1: Lauren, look [inaudible].
PHOTOGRAPHER 2: Ivanka!
[indistinct press chatter]
PHOTOGRAPHER 3: Big smile right here, big smile right here.
LOLA: Fabiola Beracasa, she was one.
Baby Olivia Palermo,
she was just coming out of high school back then.
BEN: Another very prominent young woman around this time
was Casey Johnson,
who was an heiress of the Johnson & Johnson fortune.
She was the absolute epitome of a Park Avenue princess
and she was also Paris Hilton's best friend.
PARIS HILTON: I think it's pretty superficial, but at the same time,
our whole group is considered "it girls."
'Cause we're beautiful, cool, and sexy.
Everybody's an "it girl" if you have self-confidence, right?
Don't you agree?
BEN: These were gorgeous, young women
having the time of their lives.
♪ The Simple Life theme playing ♪
PERSON: Isn't that Paris Hilton?
BEN: The culture responded with shows like The Simple Life and The City.
NARRATOR: In this city,
there are the downtown girls, like my friend, Erin,
and then there's the uptown crowd, like Olivia.
She's a socialite or as she likes to say, a social.
And then you had Gossip Girl.
GOSSIP GIRL: Hey, Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here.
And I have the biggest news ever.
BEN: Which further glamorized this idea of young, Manhattan privilege
as just the ideal for a young person.
My God, you'll never believe what's on Gossip Girl.
Someone saw Serena getting off a train at Grand Central.
And so, of course, women flocked to the city
and those with means hired publicists,
which is a necessary rung on the social ladder in New York City.
This led to a whole mini-trend of people who wanted to become publicists.
New York Magazine did a very famous cover story
called "Power Girls,"
and they were positioned as the most influential
and fun, young women in the city.
Publicists were at their all-time, most powerful during that era.
The bigger the celebrity you were, the more publicists you had,
and it was this wall that you could not penetrate.
[indistinct chatter]
They could make or break careers.
They could create people out of, like, duct tape and paper clips,
and all of a sudden, you've got a star.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Yeah, this way, Amanda, over here.
[indistinct chatter]
MORGAN: We think we can control how we are seen,
who looks at us, and what stories they tell.
But that's a lie.
Beauty and grace can't be for everyone.
They would lose their meaning.
Some of us have to be the other.
That's our role.
[indistinct shouting]
Money might mean freedom, but only for some,
because even though cash is king,
a queen does not control her own destiny.
PAPARAZZO 1: Paris!
I'm not talking with anybody tonight.
PAPARAZZO 2: We don't wanna talk. We just wanna look at you.
[static]
PAPARAZZO 3: Tinsley! Tinsley, look up.
MORGAN: This is Tinsley.
To her, this is success...
PAPARAZZO 3: Tinsley.
MORGAN: ...becoming an object to consume.
[static]
♪
TV HOST: Sophisticated, stylish, and savvy Tinsley Mortimer
is one of the most visible faces on New York's red-carpet social scene.
BEN: When Tinsley Mortimer arrived on the red carpet scene,
she was one of the most photogenic girls at the time
that anyone had ever seen,
but some people felt that
she wasn't from the right background, shall we say.
She was from the South. She had a more Southern style.
She had that beautiful, you know, Southern debutante charm and smile,
uh, and I think she put the back up of some of the other girls
who were used to, shall we say, a more Yankee Patrician approach.
TINSLEY MORTIMER: I came to New York to actually go to Columbia University,
and I played tennis for them.
And I had come from Lawrenceville, which is a boarding school in New Jersey,
and I was the captain of the tennis team there.
And we had, you know, tea at four and we had, I think, you know, a chef,
and it was all just very over the top, particularly, being at school.
At the time, New York felt very thriving,
and it was just this whole crazy world of, you know, all these charity events
and these benefits that were over the top.
And I remember seeing these pretty girls and all these photographers swarmed them,
and they were taking pictures and it just looked like,
"Oh, my God, this is just so fun and glamorous."
[indistinct party chatter]
I just remember seeing that and thinking like,
"Oh, my God, this is fun.
I wanna be part of this. This looks cool."
R. COURI HAY: All my girls that I worked with,
I'm very proud to have worked with all of them,
all really had "it" already.
When you're called an "it girl,"
it means you're hot, you're sexy, you're out, you're about,
and usually means you're available.
When I work with clients, I ask, "What is the goal?"
Because when you're a queenmaker, there has to be a goal.
If you don't have a goal and you pay me enough money,
I'll give you one.
When I met Tinsley Mortimer,
we were at a party, at the Guggenheim Museum,
and I remember she was sitting outside and she said,
"Couri, I just wanna be a little socialite."
And I, I kinda-- I made this, like, joke to him.
I was like, "I just wanna be a socialite.
"I just wanna, like, I wanna, you know,
"work on all these different events and charities,
"and I just wanna, like, you know, go to these fun parties
and wear glamorous dresses."
And I just sort of-- I said it like that.
I said, "Okay."
I said, "What are you doing now?"
And she said, "I'm a publicist working for this company."
TINSLEY: After Columbia, I ended up working at Vogue Magazine .
After I left Vogue ,
I had also worked for a PR company, Harrison & Shriftman.
I said, "Well, when you quit your job, come see me."
Because I wasn't gonna make a authentic, uh, debutante
into a high-society girl of the moment as a publicist.
It just didn't work; didn't, didn't click.
So, she quit her job.
I put her on-- The first committee was the Museum of Natural History.
I was able to, uh, have some more time
and really put my efforts into being philanthropic
and working on these different charities,
and that's when it all just sort of came a part of my world
and the whole thing, so.
[indistinct shouting]
COURI: Tinsley already had it.
She was beautiful.
She was brainy, well-born, a real debutante.
Married Topper Mortimer, Standard Oil heir.
So, it wasn't that difficult to promote Tinsley as an "it girl"
because she really was an "it girl."
It wasn't about her blue blood, which Tinsley had.
It wasn't about her blonde ringlets, which she had.
It wasn't about her pretty, flirty, party dresses,
which she had.
It was how many parties she would go to in a night.
It was that simple.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Yeah, I like that. Good. Very nice.
BEN: There were six parties a night
and there was a red carpet in front of every party.
It's very important that they not be seen in the same dress at, at different events,
even if they're an hour apart,
because the weekly celebrity magazines
would not run two pictures of them in the same dress.
COURI: It's all about being in the right dress at the right time
at the right party
in front of Patrick McMullan.
PATRICK: A big part of that time period
is when people realized the power of image.
It was exciting.
It's exciting to see people looking stylish where you just--
your eyes, like, go, "Oh, wow."
That power of image can be acquired, but it also can be taught.
You get a stylist
or you get people to help you with how to dress.
It's like anything else.
If you have a garden, you're not gonna just
try to do it all yourself. You get a pro.
COURI: I put her on all the right committees.
She showed up. She took the pictures.
I told her it was more of a silent movie game than anything,
that she really shouldn't talk too much.
And at some point, you know, Tinsley felt her oats.
She was the queen, um, on the cover of The Post twice.
KELLY BRADY: She was the most photographed woman in Manhattan society.
She created a bag line,
then Dior named a lipstick after her.
She was on billboards.
Whenever Tinsley walked into a party,
it was, like, photographers rushing over her.
Flashes, flashes, flashes, flashes, like,
"Tinsley, Tinsley, Fabiola, Fabiola, Tinsley!"
[indistinct shouting] PHOTOGRAPHER: Fabiola!
BEN: Something else that changed during this era
is that downtown and uptown really merged
in a way that they hadn't so much before in New York society.
So, suddenly, all the socials were coming below 14th Street
to places like Beatrice Inn in the West Village.
They were going to the clubs of the meat packing district,
which had newly opened up.
They were going to Bungalow 8 in far west Chelsea.
♪
AMY SACCO: All the socialites came through,
my little fashion plates, my fashionistas, my social gals.
Nicky, Paris, Nicole Richie, Casey,
Tinsley, my favorite.
♪
TINSLEY: You hear about the old days of Studio 54 and everything.
Bungalow 8 was that for my generation and my world and stuff.
And that was just the coolest place.
It was small and intimate, and all your friends were there.
AMY: I really believe in the cross-cultural,
trans-generational dynamic.
So, we always had models, moguls, rogues, raconteurs,
reprobates, skateboarders
sitting next to, you know, George Clooney or RuPaul.
[inaudible]
VALENTINE UHOVSKI: Bungalow 8 was huge because, you know,
you would have an, a socialite sat three seats away from famous drag queen
to an emerging designer.
And we were just, you know, college students at the time,
and the drinks were too expensive, so we ordered pizza.
Pizza was more cheaper than the drinks at Bungalow 8.
We'd be the only people eating at Bungalow 8.
People were doing blow, and they were hanging out,
and they were makin' the world go round.
And you would see the richest families in the world,
and it would be 12, 1:00 A.M., 2:00 A.M., 4:00 A.M.,
and everybody would still be partying.
And I promise you,
deals were done on those dirty coke sex tables.
Remember you could-- I could be, like, super drunk
and then I was starving, and I'd go out
and go get, like, hotdogs, like, on the street
and then come back in.
And sometimes there were photographers out there
and they would, like, get me, like, getting, like, a hotdog.
You know, we just were doing the things that people before us did too.
But the times had changed a little bit
where things were then popping on the internet the next day.
The term "socialite" was a hard word for me,
because I was actually really busy and really working,
and people thought was more frivolous.
And, like, I'm just, like, lunching.
"She's going to parties, she's dressing up and she's lunching."
It was not that way.
So, having a lot of press written about you,
and of course, when the blog started to come up,
I didn't love that time, it was difficult.
BEN: When the blogging craze took off, it seemed like the wild west of media.
Suddenly, everyday people
were putting their opinions about famous people
on the internet,
which was a big deal at the time.
And I think the secret to many of the blogs' appeal
is that they were really great way to waste time at work.
You could scroll Perez Hilton for a few minutes,
read some salacious celebrity gossip, see some pictures.
Uh, and people who had cultural foresight
understood that actually was incredibly important
and it was what the younger people were reading.
Suddenly, the publicists were less relevant than they were.
And you could get around the traditional tabloid gossip columns
by going directly to these opinion samurai,
who are self-publishing their own thoughts and their own pictures
on their own platforms.
So, it was really a collision of the old guard and the new guard.
A-And now, print legacy media was dominated by the blogs.
Blogs like Gawker.
KELLY: When the blogs started,
they really started covering these Manhattan society girls,
and it could get a little mean.
PERSON 1: Nice job, whoring yourself out
to a full prone magazine, Tinsley Mortimer.
Oh, and speaking of whoring and whoriness,
the fake nails plus lots of big jewelry thing
is a little prostitutional, no?
EMILY GOULD: When I first started working at Gawker,
there were a lot of industries that were just, like, on the verge
of being completely as extinct as the dinosaurs.
And there I was,
and I just thought that I had gotten so lucky. [laughs]
And that I was gonna, you know, speak truth to power in this job.
There was a lot of money in New York right then,
and it was the fashion culture of, like, obvious status symbols,
giant, giant handbags.
You know, you really wanted a bag
that was, like, as big as your entire body.
But, you know, I was not making very much money at Gawker.
As a contrast, Gawker was so grubby, so gritty.
We worked in a storefront office
and people would wander in off the street all the time
because they thought it was a coffee shop.
So, it was definitely the vibe of
we are going to make fun of anyone who is rich and powerful
because we can,
because that's possible.
PERSON 1: Debutard Tinsley Mortimer's handbag line launch
featured a worst-nightmare tableau of lookalike Tinsleys,
who also presumably have to get their hair curled
before leaving the house.
LOLA: Emily was definitely one of the most powerful voices
in New York media at the time,
and you understood that, like, she had the power of the pen.
And that pen could be vicious and scandalous and snarky and mean.
PERSON 1: "Tinsley Mortimer Is Slipping."
Olivia Palermo, your path seems to have cleared.
[indistinct chatter]
BEN: Olivia Palermo was now the really bright spark on the scene
when she emerged.
She was a natural in front of the camera.
Patrick McMullan loves snapping pictures of her.
She had the right connections. She was from Greenwich.
She went to the right schools.
She didn't necessarily come from the level of wealth,
uh, of many of the other socials.
Uh, and I think for that reason, some people were a little bit wary of her,
that maybe she was trying to break her way into some-someplace she didn't belong.
Another blog that was particularly vicious was Socialite Rank.
And Socialite Rank pitted her against Tinsley Mortimer
as kind of a natural nemesis.
Socialite Rank was an anonymously written blog
devoted to who was up and who was down in the socialite world.
They kept a running tally of the 20 women ranked by their prominence.
When it first came out,
I was ranked number one,
and it was either Lauren Santo Domingo was two,
or Fabiola Beracasa.
Then, I think we happened to be in the Hamptons altogether at that time.
And we just thought it was so funny. We were sort of joking.
I was like, "I'm number one," and be like, "Whatever."
You know, just, like, it's a joke.
But, um-- And we thought it was fun for about half a second
until it just became not fun.
♪
BEN: Even when we didn't know who was behind Socialite Rank,
Olga and Valentine were on the scene
and they cultivated a real air of mystery about their relationship.
They never let it be known whether they were brother and sister
or whether they were lovers
and that was part of their mystique.
I'm Valentine Uhovski. I'm a cultural curator
and I'm one of the co-founders of Socialite Rank.
I'm Olga Rei.
Um, I'm a co-founder of Socialite Rank and... that's it.
[indistinct chatter]
VALENTINE: We both came to New York in mid-'90s from Russia.
While we were still in high school, we started working pretty early.
Olga worked in two modeling agencies.
I worked in PR,
so we kind of had a little bit of exposure to the world.
OLGA REI: And also, I interned for Marc Jacobs,
and, you know, through that, I got to attend some of his parties
and his events are just the most beautiful parties
you could attend.
My first makeup experience was with Amanda Lepore
and she did my, my lips.
So, New York was a very special place where you can go and meet Amanda Lepore
and she would give you a makeup tutorial.
[indistinct chatter]
VALENTINE: When we're both 19, we started promoting at a club.
Promoted something like 30 events with everyone from Jenna Jameson
to socialites.
Social Rank was an art project
and when we conceived it, we thought it was a complete joke,
that it was, like, an inside, like, a Pop Art joke.
We were inspired by everyone from Duchamp with his, like, Dada movement,
to, you know--
Andy Warhol. I mean, we love Andy Warhol
and just the melting pot of the high and low
and how he would bring drag queens and then socialites together
and create beautiful projects with it that we see in the museums right now.
So, it was always an art project.
VALENTINE: Tinsley, she was at her prime
and, and just kind of, like, this perfect character
that you couldn't even invent.
I mean, she was just this amazing, friendly,
sunny kind of woman
that, um, just became almost like a poster child for the website
when it launched.
[indistinct shouting]
Olivia was, you know, super young. She was younger than us.
She was almost like an anti-Tinsley in some ways,
not just with the hair color.
She was just younger, more emerging,
and she was just like this, you know, beautiful girl
that, like us, appeared out of nowhere, burst into the scene.
And Tinsley, she kind of was old school
and Olivia represented of what was coming.
So, we created a storylines of who the heroes were,
who the villains were,
but it was also, like, a lot of the comment sections
dictated a lot where the storylines went.
And at that point, it basically grew on its own.
It was a ecosystem,
so it really was its own world where people would just--
they would have dialogues with each other.
PERSON 2: "Tinsley is washed up!"
"She's so two-thousand late."
PERSON 3: "Is her nose real?
Her hair? Her wealth?"
PERSON 4: "Welcome to the top, bitches!
It's a long way back down."
People just can sit on their sofa behind their computer
and just make all these comments about you.
Having, you know, to deal with all these negative comments
or just feeling like I was a target or had, like, a bullseye on my back,
it took me down a bit.
It made things different.
It made things look like they were competitive when they weren't,
at least for me.
It made things look more seedy
when it was people were doing good work in these events
and they might be being photographed
and might be, you know, wearing glamorous clothes,
but it just wasn't the world that they were sort of portraying.
I get that they were doing sort of a mockery of it a little bit
and it was sort of fun and people loved it.
Uh, so it's, it's hard 'cause that, to me,
honestly, I don't-- I, I feel like it was-- that was a,
that was a rough moment.
I just think overall it kind of was
a little bit more hurtful to me than, than helpful.
PERSON 5: Socialite Rank posted an email that young socialite
and New School University student, Olivia Palermo,
sent to all her frenemies on Sunday.
There was a minor scandal
involving Olivia Palermo and Socialite Rank.
They published an email,
which they claimed she had sent to her fellow socials
saying to the other girls on the scene,
"Oh, we've got off on the wrong foot
"and, you know, the-- people are saying mean things about me,
but I'm really not like that. I'm much nicer."
And the way that Socialite Rank positioned this email
when they published it
was that she was sucking up to the other girls
in order to gain a position in their society.
I think it goes to show
that someone was clearly-- had too much time on their hands,
or I was a little exciting for them,
so I'll take that as a compliment.
But other than that, I was not happy with the fact
that someone was using my name and likeness without my consent.
I think it anything, it was just more, um, the fact
that someone can be so malicious.
ZACKARY DRUCKER: When did you first become aware of it?
I have-- I had only known about it
because someone had mentioned it twice to me,
but it was not on my radar
'cause it wasn't the content that I was reading at the time.
So, I was aware of it, obviously, when my friends told me that, like,
"Should maybe, like, call your lawyer and check this out."
The internet was a new time.
Laws were not really created for online yet,
so it was kind of a free-for-all,
but, you know, it was important to make sure that it was shut down
and, um, we did that quite quickly.
[slight chuckle]
BEN: Olivia Palermo threatened to sue.
Whether she did or didn't sue, I'm not sure she did,
she certainly rattled her saber
and that was enough to bring the house of cards
that was Socialite Rank crashing down.
VALENTINE: It was bigger than us
because every single one of these women had managers behind them,
publicists, wealthy families,
so we were always had, in a way, incredible power
but we were just young college kids that were way over our league
when it came to the status
and, and, um, and, obviously, wealth of some of the ladies on the list.
ZACKARY: What do you think this whole blogging era says about us as a culture?
Well, that's America for you.
They ha-- They bring them up and then they bring them down.
I would like them just to, like, can we just stay up
and just, you know, stay happy up?
Why do we always have to tear people down?
Doesn't make sense to me.
BEN: Socialite Rank really set the scene for interest in this kind of world
and when that went away, it left a void.
And so, there was a ready-made audience who wanted to know about these women
and that's when Park Avenue Peerage arrived on the scene.
And Park Avenue Peerage was very different in tone.
Uh, it was much more celebratory of the women,
it was much more respectful
and we were still very much in the era of the snarky blog.
So, it was refreshing at the time
to see someone taking an approach which was not as critical,
uh, and not so interested in pitting the women against each other.
PERSON 6: " I cordially welcome you to Park Avenue Peerage,
"a new website dedicated to the social creatures
"of the here and now.
"We wish the creators of Socialite Rank all the best in their endeavors,
"but their collective judgment is over now.
The crown became ours this morning."
TINSLEY: Park Avenue Peerage appeared
right when Socialite Rank was ending or ended,
and I remember noticing it and thinking,
"Okay, well, this one seems nicer."
There was no rankings and things,
so it wasn't this, like, competition that's being put forth
that never really existed.
Whoever the mysterious people were that were doing it
were very smart and definitely seemed
so knowledgeable about the world of socialites.
And that's also why it was Park Avenue Peerage, you know?
It was just sort of sounded more grand.
PERSON 7: In New York, the guilty party pictures pleasures
offered at Park Avenue Peerage
may be the closest thing to a real-life Gossip Girl website in existence,
except way, way nicer.
BEN: Was an instant sensation,
and like Socialite Rank, nobody knew who wrote it
and it really did sound like it was written
by some Gossip Girl -esque anonymous scion of a rich family.
And because Park Avenue Peerage was written by someone
who had a little bit more understanding of what went on in that world,
there was sort of more a possibility
that it might have been written by someone who was inside the scene.
And Park Avenue Peerage seemed to want to emulate them and understand them,
uh, emotionally in a way that Socialite Rank never tried to do.
But the one consistent thing between the two of them
was that Tinsley Mortimer was still the most socially regarded girl.
PERSON 8: Tinsley is fair-skinned with blonde hair that she usually curls.
She often wears shorter skirts and rounded shoes
and her cheeks are rouged.
She is the embodiment of playful youth.
TINSLEY: Because they wrote so much about me,
people thought that I had something to do with it,
but they all found out who it was and it wasn't me. [laughs]
♪ light music playing ♪
ADAM HOFF: Working as a photographer,
my first actual assignment was with New York Magazine
and the story in the magazine was basically about the New York society
and a few of these bloggers.
I mean, Park Avenue Peerage was as anonymous as you could be.
All I was told was he was a college student
at University of Illinois
and so, there was a lot of hype and a lot of interest
to find out who this person was.
♪
I remember meeting him in person right away.
To my knowledge, this was the first time he had been photographed.
♪
He was very easy to be around. He was very easy to talk to.
But at the same time, he was very nervous about it,
and very insecure about how he was gonna be perceived.
I mean, he was a total outsider from what I could tell.
When he was finally revealed to be James Kurisunkal,
it was completely unexpected.
It didn't make any sense. [chuckles]
JAMES KURISUNKAL: Why did I even come out?
The writer of the New York piece, Isaiah Wilner, called me
and we talked for hours off the record.
I am aware that there was intrigue in a mysterious author,
but I just didn't see it.
I think it is much more interesting that I am who I am,
a chronicler of Manhattan society in the Midwest,
who is neither WASP nor heir of industry.
When James's identity was finally revealed in New York Magazine,
I think it was shocking to people,
uh, because he was in Illinois for one thing.
He was far away from the action, uh, and he was so young.
CAMERA ASSISTANT: Family interview, take one.
JOSEPH KURISUNKAL: Thank you for coming here.
PHILOMENA KURISUNKAL: We had never heard this,
so this is our first experience.
We are norm-- you know, ordinary people.
James born in '89.
He's very caring, simple, and, uh, compassionate.
And, uh, in school, he's a brilliant student.
JOSEPH: He like science project all the time.
He was in the gifted class from the grade school to high school.
Doing homework and, uh, you know.
He reads a lot, so finally he start writing.
♪
JAMES: My favorite movie when I was a child was Clueless.
I literally thought I was Cher Horowitz.
I'm not kidding. My imagination is wild.
Television and film and wedding announcements
and novels, therefore, are much more than moving images
or groupings of text.
My body physically hurts when I'm watching or reading
because I feel so much for the character.
I have the ability to plant myself anywhere.
ZACKARY: Did you know what he was writing?
He never tell us.
He, he don't show and, uh, he don't, uh, tell what he's doing.
JAMES: La Lohan is my religion.
I also enjoy Nicky Hilton's casual style.
If I were a girl, I think I'd be Nicky Hilton.
I'd carry the largest, clunkiest bag in daylight
and of course, my clunky sidekick.
ZACKARY: When James was young, did you feel like there was things
that he kept secret or private?
Most of them are private.
JAMES: I'm so fat and ugly.
I saw my reflection in the mirror and I'm one large, silver mound of fat.
I'm like an ugly boulder.
They're usually majestic, but I am not.
He never show anything, you know, upset or anything that,
always smiling, talking.
Maybe he keeping inside something.
- Yeah. He don't-- - We don't know.
You know, if-- He was not very open all the time.
That's, uh, you know, a main part, you know, nobody would know what his,
- his feelings are. - Happening with him.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
CASEY BLAKELY: When James and I first met,
I was a sophomore and he was a freshman.
It was one of those college towns where there was nothing around
except for the college town.
♪
There was a gay bar on campus called Chester Street
or C Street for short,
and we would go there and just, like, dance the night away.
It was such a small-town bar, but in our heads,
might as well have been Babylon from, like, Queer as Folk.
I had just come out, it was my sophomore year.
I was like 19 and I was going through all my girl drama at that time
and coming to him and confiding in him,
and so he and I really did kind of connect.
♪
He was a wild child.
He was just unique,
a pure individual, did things his own way
and I just learned to kind of, like, go with it.
Just like, "Okay, that's just James. He just does things his own way."
JAMES: "Homo in the Husks, journal entry.
"I'm at a real college now, like, with fraternities and football
"and English majors.
"I love pumpkin pie ice cream with caramel and whipping topping and graham crackers
"and boys with French surnames.
"Joseph DuBois flirted with me at Coldstone today.
He's sweet and kind-eyed and he laughs."
CASEY: He's an amazing writer.
Like, he's extremely talented, extremely creative,
very witty, very insightful.
He always gave really great, sound advice,
but didn't always make the best decisions when it came to himself.
JAMES: I'm not gorgeous.
I'm not skinny, I'm not attractive, nor am I fashionable one bit.
I smell mostly, and I'm brown.
Who will find my drama endearing?
My laughing, my smile, my eyes, my skin?
Who will love these?
I wish I had someone who understood me.
CASEY: James never verbally said, "I want to be a socialite,"
but if I pay closer attention,
I could see he wanted to be in that world.
He wanted to be amongst them,
and Tinsley was like his number one.
JAMES: "Tinsley Mortimer, March 7, 2007.
"Tinsley Mortimer has been the target of the camera
"since she first made her premiere as the demure but beautiful
and fashionable wife of a scion of one of New York's older families."
CASEY: It was clear that it was really important to him
and he really treasured it.
That was, that was his world, uh, he really did admire that--
I would ask him sometimes, like, "How do you know so much about them?"
And he would, he would laugh and just say, like,
"Casey, you can literally Google the information."
He's like, "It's literally out there for anyone to read about
if they really do the research."
He was the first one to kind of show me Google Analytics
and all the background of who was visiting
and how many more people visited than, like, the week before.
And when it became, like, really popular,
that, for me, it kind of seemed a little bit overnight.
JAMES: "Debut. May 7, 2007.
"It's a simple fact that every glorious debutante of our age
"deserves a proper and befitting coming out,
"and I refuse to give myself anything else.
"Yesterday, I was but an unknown deb.
This morning, I liken myself to a Miller."
CASEY: When the story came out,
where he was offered a job with the New York Magazine
and then I was just so proud of him, like beaming from ear to ear.
That was the ticket for him to be amongst who he wrote about
and knew so much about.
JAMES: "I can't wait to move to New York this summer.
"I'd like to become an executive,
"like a publisher or a studio head.
I wanna be afforded respect."
BEN: When he came to New York, I would see him around at the time
and I had a column called "Gate Crasher."
Well, I guess James was a reader of the column,
and of course, he was fascinated with the world that I was covering.
It started a correspondence, uh, and he was delightful
and he was a little bit starstruck, I think,
about, you know, to be finally there in this fairytale land
that he'd been describing from afar for so long.
[indistinct chatter]
TINSLEY: When James got to New York, he reached out to me
and he was so sweet and such a fan
and he was wanting to meet me and all these things,
and that's-- I-I found out he didn't even live in New York.
It was so crazy and so cute, adorable.
I was like, "How cute is this?" You know?
This fascination with this world and you're not even anywhere near it.
And so, I set up where he was gonna meet me
at one of the Cinema Society events
and we did, and I think [indistinct] was there.
JAMES: "New York Magazine. July 12, 2007.
"Park Avenue Peers: A Blogger Meets Tinsley.
"As I got out of the taxi in front of the Tribeca Grand last night,
"there were already blinding flashes.
"There she was, Tinsley Mortimer in full glory,
"a vision in Dior.
"A summer tan, golden heels and that long, blonde hair.
"Then I walked past the photographers, opened the door,
"and there she was waiting for me.
'We are going to have a great night,' she promised."
CASEY: I remember him telling me about meeting Tinsley,
and he was very excited and very giddy
and, um, I was happy for him as well. Yeah.
♪
MORGAN: As a child, I felt unstable in my own skin.
I felt like I couldn't breathe.
♪
Now that I'm older,
I see how two different people existed.
One that was James, one that was me.
♪
I always feel like "become" is, like, like a strangling word
because it's really to be who one really is.
You know, we might go through some physical changes,
but we're not becoming anyone.
We are being who we always were.
Just took a little bit of time and a little bit of, uh, pain.
My best friend when I was in high school
was like, this like, old-money heiress.
Her great-grandfather was Roswell Mason,
who was, like, the mayor of Chicago during the Great Fire
and he was also the president of the Illinois Central Railroad
and, like, a colleague of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
For instance, like, her uncle's name was like, Huntington Starkweather Mason.
You go to Yale's campus,
there's all these, like, buildings named after their family.
Like, they were very old East Coast money
and I didn't realize, like, there were all these systems in place,
so I was just fascinated by that.
♪
And then I was, like, fascinated by her a lot.
Here she was at this school of immigrants
and we kind of, like, found each other. Like, we were like two weirdos.
Jennifer Aniston was in Chicago
filming a movie called The Break-Up with Vince Vaughn.
We were like prodigious readers,
so we were, like, reading, like, Perez Hilton,
Wonkette, Pink is the New Blog.
And so, I sent that as a tip in to Perez Hilton.
I realized with just a word or a phrase,
like, the layer between myself and this glamorous, glittering world
was not separate at all.
With just a word, with just a few phrases.
There was no separation. It was right there.
ZACKARY: I wanna get into talking about New York and what that was like.
Oh, yeah. Like, they treated me like I was like, the Second Coming of Christ
when I walked into that building.
♪ angelic music playing ♪
When I worked at New York Magazine,
everything was done to like, make sure that I was pampered.
All these, like, sorts of prominent people
would come and pay homage.
And it was really surreal, to be quite honest,
to go from, like, Champaign-Urbana
to, like, literally two weeks later, I have my own place in the East Village
and I have a chauffeur taking me here and there
and, you know, lunch with this aristocrat and dinner with this other person.
♪
I would go out at night with my colleague at New York Magazine.
We'd go to all these clubs that other people couldn't get into,
like the Beatrice Inn.
That's where we'd run into like, these downtown kind of characters
that were, like, not uptown socialites.
♪
The first night I had ever gone out in New York City,
apparently, like, everyone who's anyone
knew that I was going out that night.
I don't know why or how, but I walked into the elevator
and I think it was Anna Wintour, Graydon Carter,
the editor of GQ and then the editor of Radar,
and they were all checking me out.
And I was just a kid, you know, living a little bit of a dream.
TINSLEY: How are you? It's Tins.
Hey. [echoes]
No, I'm still typing the post.
Tinsley and I became very fast friends.
Yes, I know the place. We go there all the time.
Oh, my God.
Hi.
Though we looked like we were from two different worlds,
it was almost like we were from the same world.
Like, it was like I met my twin and she met hers.
You're special and you're beautiful inside and out,
and it's, it's important just to keep being you
and letting everyone see you.
Thank you.
She was like a nationally ranked tennis player, like, in high school.
Like, I could relate to her 'cause I was, like, a star writer
when I was, like, barely 17. You know?
So, we understood each other on that weird, teen-prodigy level.
It was almost like this weird sorority. [giggles]
This very secret society that was very public.
I don't know. I feel like we talked on the phone
like different times and just-- he was just this really sweet boy
that, um, then was coming to New York and really wanted to meet me
and was super excited about it.
And I just, you know, remember-- I mean, I'm sure I did, though--
although I'm not sure.
Was he, was he even doing any of the parties and coming out?
'Cause he, he didn't--
Did he move to New York at that point or no?
No. So, he really wasn't around. Yeah.
- ZACKARY: I mean, he was 19. - Yeah.
- ZACKARY: So, he couldn't have-- - Just like, so cute and young and I know.
Yeah. So, no.
ZACKARY: How does Morgan's narrative differ from reality?
I mean, you-you've spoken with her.
She lives in her own world and looking back, she always has.
Um,
things that are obvious, things that everyone can see,
it-it's kind of clear that she doesn't always choose to see that.
PHOTOGRAPHER 1: And right to your left.
[indistinct chatter]
PHOTOGRAPHER 2: Over the shoulder!
MORGAN: There's a freedom to being the other,
a freedom to write your own story.
Why should I live in their reality?
I want my own truth, a truth where I am beauty,
I am love,
I am everything.
[ambient street sounds]
CASEY: I came for a couple days and visited him in New York.
I remember the little apartment that he was in,
in the East Village.
He had a s-- teeny, tiny, little room.
I remember just being with, like, my bestie.
We were too young to really go into any bars
or any clubs like that,
so we were just kind of wandering the streets
and just kind of going to Central Park
and trying to, like, mosey our way into parties
that we just randomly found online.
He found some party to go to and the address was on 1st and 1st.
And so, we just kind of set out on foot trying to find 1st and 1st.
We were-- kept asking each other, like, "Is that even a thing?
Can something really be on 1st and 1st?" And it seemed like forever.
We finally found it,
and then we were, like, looking up at the apartment,
like, "You go first."
And he's like, "No, you go first." "No, you go first."
And sadly to say, we never went inside.
PERSON 9: "James Kurisunkal Is Interning At New York Magazine. "
"James Kurdistan's 'Aw Shucks' Persona Is So Patently False."
"Park Avenue Peerage: A PR-Seeking Socialite's Best Friend."
"James Kurisunkal's Humbly Fabulous Beginnings."
There were moments when I would be aware
that I was not accepted, like those articles in Gawker.
ZACKARY: Do you remember James Kurisunkal?
No.
ZACKARY: Can I read you one of the posts?
Yeah, do it. Do it.
'Kay.
ZACKARY: "James is secretly or not quite secretly enough,
"a total player with a very inflated opinion
"of his own importance.
"Mr. Kurisunkal said that he is delighted in working at New York Magazine,
"which he called 'very horizontal in the way it's run.'
"We wondered how horizontal New York Magazine really is,
"so we asked a staffer there who said, 'Well, it's not Vanity Fair,
"'but I mean he's a fucking fact-checking intern,
which is even lower on the totem pole than regular interns.'"
I wrote that?
ZACKARY: Yeah, you did.
Wow. That's--
I mean, I'm impressed that I talked to a New York Magazine staffer.
[laughs]
It's weird. Even as you read it back to me,
I have zero memory of writing it.
I don't want to let myself off the hook too easily about any of this.
It's true that I was young and a cog in a machine,
but I could've made different choices.
I mean, I had free will.
It was very unclear to me that these were real people
and not like characters in a book.
Like, we made them into characters for the internet,
but, like, there was no sense that I was, like, writing something
that would a-affect someone's actual life.
James was an easy target.
MORGAN: I started feeling so many terrible things about myself
where I would be very aware of the fact that, um,
you know, I came from a background that
was different than theirs.
And that was it. Really, that was it,
that I came from a background that was unfamiliar to them.
BEN: I think for James it must have been like him being thrown into a shark tank
to be in the actual world
because being anonymous is very useful, it protects you.
And once you have that armor taken away from you
and you have to swim for yourself,
I think sometimes you can find that there's no one there to help you.
He was very young and he didn't really know
the codes of behavior a-and how to navigate that world.
And it has to be said. It's a very white world.
So, you know, as the child of immigrants, he really stood out.
After New York Magazine, he had this internship,
which involved him being in the Hamptons.
CASEY: He was staying with his boss at the time.
And as we all know, the Hamptons is maybe not the place to be
if you look anything other than white and wealthy.
MORGAN: I ended up living with this very racist woman.
There were all sorts of elements that led this person to not like me.
It was the brown, it was the gay, it was the male.
It was the fact that, like, I was where it took her 20 years to get to,
but I was still, again, a teenager.
CASEY: According to James, there was some sort of altercation.
She was like, "You know why I don't want you around here."
She's like, "You know what you are."
And I'm like, "What is that?" And she's like, "You're a fucking--"
I do recall that. Yeah, he did tell me that she call him the N-word
and, uh, he was very hurt by that.
Very shocked and very hurt by that.
MORGAN: I always knew I was an outsider.
But it wasn't until someone like that saying that to my face
when it all became so apparent that what a dark world that, that is.
And it's nothing that I want anything to do with.
CASEY: It was cute from afar,
you know, him being in the little dorm room at U of I
and writing about them. That's a cute story. That's a great story.
But the actual reality of him trying to join them
and be amongst them and almost be like a peer with them,
that's not something that would happen, that could possibly happen,
and it didn't happen.
Yeah... I would say that's where the fantasy fell apart.
ZACKARY: Did you know that James had a difficult time emotionally, that summer?
Yeah, I remember that.
You know, he had a-- It was-- Something happened there.
He said, "I'm coming back to Chicago." I said, "Okay."
I sent him the ticket.
So, he came back.
He was a little upset for a few days. Then after that--
"Why are people are like this, Mommy?"
I said, "You know, there are different kind of people.
So, in your life you will see lot of thing."
JAMES: "Park Avenue Peerage, February 5, 2010.
"My website is soil in which I can sift through with my hands.
"This is my final post on Park Avenue Peerage.
"The last three years have been such a ride
"and I was very happy to entertain.
"A great deal of people that come to PAP are here for Tinsley Mortimer.
"Mostly, I'd like to thank my readers.
"I'm no longer fascinated by this world.
"I'm not impressed. In fact, I'm depressed.
God bless, James."
TINSLEY: My name is Tinsley Mortimer.
♪ All the Right Moves by OneRepublic playing ♪
People call me a socialite.
♪ So, yeah, we're goin' down ♪
PAUL JOHNSON CALDERON: It really is a rat race in the New York social world.
♪
High Society was definitely not... the show that wa-- it was set out to be.
But the real story...
Reality TV was a little too early. People were very judgmental.
The economic crash,
it really kind of happened, like, around then
and people didn't want to see people having some glamorous-y type of life.
That also wasn't really what the show was supposed to be about.
It wasn't supposed to look like we are total brats in, like, this world,
it-- but it kind of elevated that and pushed that as a, as a thing.
So, it was terrifying.
We will never be friends now.
I just pulled back tremendously afterwards.
I-- It was-- I was burnt out.
I mean, that, mixed with all the other stuff I had done,
all that stuff I just thought I just need to take a break,
um, and I just didn't really do much for a while.
So, I don't remember communicating with James so much
while-- I mean, I think even after it was over,
we still were friends and I was still talking to him.
And then I just lost touch with him.
ZACKARY: Why did your friendship with Tinsley end?
I don't believe it ended.
Um, I think it just paused for a little bit.
She had a television show that she had been working on,
um, that took a very-- it took her away from a lot of her friends
and that's why, you know, we didn't really stay in communication.
In this weird way, like, I was a member of that world
and she was a dear friend of mine
and... I felt like I was no longer important.
And... that was very, like, hurtful
because, like,
it wasn't that I looked up to her,
it was just that, like, she depended so much on me
and then all of a sudden, it was like she just didn't care.
♪
I'd flunked out of U of I
because I had been so focused on New York.
I went from weighing, like, you know, 200-something to a 100-something,
but doing it all through starvation and cocaine usage.
CASEY: It was, yeah, pills and cocaine and ecstasy.
It became apparent more and more as we kept hanging out.
And at the same time also
he was very into someone named Tommy.
MORGAN: "Tommy. 07/24/10.
"I guess I'm getting desperate
because I emailed that hot drug dealer last night."
He was like the skateboarder, pot grower, tattoo artist, bad boy,
and we just kind of clicked.
"When he met me, he gave me $40 in cash
"and $40 worth of the best weed in town.
"He also promised to give me free ecstasy pills, lol.
"He claims he's straight and looks and acts very straight.
But for some reason, the waxing moon, I thought of him last night."
I didn't get the impression that they hung out necessarily.
It was just more James kind of like lusting after him.
MORGAN: "07/23/11.
"We've never kissed, you've never held my hand.
I've never given so much of myself to anyone or anything."
CASEY: James latched on
and it got to a point where the obsession was a lot.
It was a lot. It was a lot to hear.
It was a lot to see my friend obsessing over someone
who clearly had no interest in him at all,
but was willing to accept anything that James gave.
He took credit cards out and was doing cash advances
and, um, giving envelopes of money,
just leaving it on Tommy's doorstep.
You know, at that time I had, um-- I was very free
with, like, things that I had access to, like funds and things.
And I found that he was misappropriating
a lot of the funds that I had made available to him
and using them in... not... good ways.
ZACKARY: Where'd the money come from?
I was borrowing against my own inheritance.
So, um, it was like funds that were appropriated for me eventually,
but I was just taking it really early on.
[giggles]
ZACKARY: From your parents?
Yeah.
It was like $300,000 when I was, like, 19 years old. You know?
ZACKARY: Did that affect your parents' finances?
Did they file for bankruptcy?
Uh, yeah, they did.
CASEY: I was really confused by it
and no matter how much I said, like, "You need to stop.
Like, stop giving him money. Like, just leave it alone, move on,"
it, it didn't really matter.
It really sucked because I knew who he could be.
I knew who we were together, like, how much fun we had,
how carefree we were,
how creative he was, and how charismatic he was.
Like, he could make friends with anyone just, like, win anybody over.
But at that time, it was Tommy and pills and cocaine and ecstasy
to the point where--
Yeah, I guess that was, like, the catalyst to ending our friendship. Yeah.
MORGAN: And it just made me, like, not want to write anymore,
be myself anymore.
It just made me really want to shut down.
I overdosed three times that
I was hospitalized three times that summer.
I'd reached a weight that was so low.
I wasn't eating just because I was so sad by the situation that I was in.
Like, the one choice that I made as a free adult,
was a really bad choice and I really felt that, so
it's really fucking painful.
Like, I feel like I'm gonna break down right now.
[inhales, deep exhale]
ZACKARY: Thank you so much.
Of course. I did not know you even knew about that stuff.
- What? - That whole "Tommy" shit.
I did not know you guys were going to bring that up.
- It's okay. - The bankruptcy stuff.
Oh, my God. I'm so embarrassed.
- It's not embarrassing. - I feel like fucking crying right now.
Like, I'm so ashamed of that shit.
You don't have to be, girl.
- I am. - It's a no-shame zone.
And, you know, things happen to us, and--
MORGAN: Like, I made some stupid-ass choices.
That's fucking pathetic and sad.
It's not. It's naive, but young people are naive.
Yeah, I keep forgetting I was like 18 years old.
I didn't-- I never had a boyfriend before that. You know? [laughs]
- Yeah. - But still...
It's all in your writing.
In your-- In a way, you know, it's like a-- you can tell.
- What do you mean? - That you were being taken advantage of.
That you were in love.
- Aw. [inaudible] you a crown. - You know?
[Zackary chuckles]
It's hard to, like, answer to someone.
It's hard to answer on film.
It's hard to answer to an audience
that's not even aware of these sins that I'd committed. You know?
I did cheat my family. I did cheat my parents.
I did lie to them.
I'd never forgiven myself for that.
I hope that you will.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
I hope that looking at those things and letting them exist in the light
allows them to diminish the power that it has.
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
ZACKARY: There she is... MORGAN: Hi. How are you?
ZACKARY: ...the light of my life. [laughs] Aw.
MORGAN: I literally just woke up right now.
ZACKARY: Ooh, girl. MORGAN: You have no idea.
Girl, okay, I'll do your makeup.
- MORGAN: Okay, cool. - I have breakfast for you.
MORGAN: Oh! ZACKARY: We'll do it in here.
MORGAN: Okay.
ZACKARY: Do you know your neighbor?
This lady above me was like, "I can't live in such a space."
I'd only have, like, two or three guys come in every night.
It wasn't like I was having, like, an orgy every fucking day.
Gone. Like, how has my life fallen? ZACKARY: Yeah.
MORGAN: Because I fell in love with that guy, Tommy.
How did that go?
This is why I do fucking decrepit things like sex work and shit,
'cause I don't get money otherwise.
I didn't start doing this until I was--
I realized that my parents weren't ever giving money again--
ZACKARY: So, when, when you're putting these
in this whole photo gallery together, like, what is the story,
in your mind?
MORGAN: Here's like, this really beautiful girl who's like a princess,
and then you have a little bio.
ZACKARY: "Baby girl. Your dream cum true." C-U-M.
"Gorgeous, sweet, and a true prince--" See, I've always known
[Morgan laughing] your brilliant writing
is, like, being... used in clandestine places.
"College educated, former fashion model...
- Oh! This is true. - ...with 38DDD breasts." [laughs]
This is true. I have, like, I have 950CC bras.
"And the biggest booty known to man.
You will join me again and again and again."
Woo!
ZACKARY: "Classy and elegant, but wild and freaky.
The knockout girl of your dreams is here, motherfuckers."
You have to lie just a little.
Okay, well, you're not 24.
Okay, whatever. That's my hoe age.
You say that you're 5'9" here and you say you're 5'7" here.
Whatever. These guys are not noticing discrepancies.
And right behind here, I keep my journal.
ZACKARY: Oh, you wrote. You've been writing?
MORGAN: Kind of.
This is actual writing. On the page.
"There was this beautiful, haunted, charmed life I led
"in the... confines of New York so quickly and ardently
"and they embraced me.
"So natural a fit, it felt no training could prep them for me.
"To see some nearly all resolute to brute-based behavior--
- Mm-hm. - "reaction,
made me see the carnivorous mammal in them."
T. S. Eliot would be so lucky.
[both laughing]
What's this one?
"Dear Tinsley, thank you for being the kaleidoscope
"through which I saw the world.
"Thank you for being my friend.
"Thank you for teaching me about, and sharing with me
"the evolution of fantasy to reality.
Blonds always have more fun. Nothing can stop us."
'Cause at the time, I felt like a lot of her life
- was like, being red-lighted. - Yeah.
Like, she couldn't be who she wanted to be.
- Yeah. - And I-I really--
I always related to her on that respect.
Like, she really just wanted to be someone else
that the world wouldn't let her be.
♪ somber music playing ♪
COURI: So, at some point, Tinsley stopped listening
and she decided to become self-directed.
And this-- I believe that without proper guidance
it can go all wrong.
It's like driving drunk.
It's just not advisable.
And so, I let her go.
I let her off-leash and I regret it because I think I could've guided her
through what I think was her eventual downfall.
I mean, let's face it, no one went higher
and fell further down than Tinsley.
What was she arrested on the lawn of a boyfriend?
Uh, you know, a fancy boyfriend at that.
REPORTER: In April of 2016, Mortimer was arrested for trespassing
at the Palm Beach home of her ex-boyfriend,
Alexander "Nico" Fanjul.
A day later, the news went public and her mugshot became tabloid fodder.
We got in a big fight and I couldn't get my bag back.
So I, I called the police to help me get the bag back.
That's when I found out that they could arrest me
for being on the property, which was complete shock to me.
Public records show authorities have been to the Fanjul home
to break up savage fights.
After one on Christmas 2013,
Mortimer was hospitalized with head lacerations.
TINSLEY: That relationship ended.
And it ended up putting me in a place in my life
that I was so low and felt that,
you know, I was so unfairly sort of accused of this situation
that really was not the truth.
And again, in that position where you're like,
the press is saying one thing, this is not the truth.
And you sort of feel like you're fighting for your life
and you're trying to explain yourself.
[indistinct chatter]
- PERSON 1: I like your outfit. - Thank you.
- PERSON 2: Look nice today, Tinsley. - Thanks.
Looking back now to all the things that I did,
it was so glamorous and fun
and a lot of, you know, things have been tough, a little bit recently.
And so, um, it's nice to see that girl that was, like, super confident
and, um, it's-- it has-- it's been nice to kind of
try to remember that girl and to, hopefully,
you know, do something like that again.
[sniffles]
Sorry.
KELLY: This concept of fame, it's a burden.
Just because somebody's pretty and a size two
and they have a hundred million dollars--
I hate to say it, but I mean there have been plenty of socialites,
you know, who've died, like unfortunately, you know, that appear to have everything.
And then they're still unhappy.
[indistinct chatter]
REPORTER: She was young, beautiful, and an heiress to an empire.
Now, Casey Johnson's sudden death has many asking how and why.
COURI: Casey Johnson is the saddest socialite story
that has ever been written.
It was about too much money.
Casey just couldn't control herself.
BEN: Casey was the daughter of the Johnson & Johnson empire.
Her father, Woody Johnson, owner of the Jets football team,
later Trump's ambassador to London.
Very big, very powerful family.
When the concept for The Simple Life was first mooted,
it was going to be Paris Hilton and Casey Johnson as the second girl.
And Casey decided not to do it
because she wanted to move to Los Angeles and become a serious actress.
And she said later that she regretting that decision.
PHOTOGRAPHER 1: Ladies! PHOTOGRAPHER 2: To your right, ladies. To the right, please!
BEN: She was bisexual. She had many girlfriends in Los Angeles.
She hooked up with Tila Tequila, who was a reality star of the moment.
And the two made a number of very flashy, quite vulgar appearances on red carpets,
which of course, they lapped up.
Unfortunately, at the time,
she was also using drugs and alcohol to excess.
[indistinct chatter]
BEN: And unfortunately, not long afterwards, she died in her bed
because she wasn't monitoring her health conditions.
PERSON: Hi, ladies.
KELLY: She never told people that she was a Johnson.
She was just this cool, little, blonde girl who was, like, super dope,
who was, like, a total troublemaker.
I don't know why I'm crying about her.
She was the coolest girl ever, right?
So... I don't think that happiness and money or the way that you look
has anything to do with any of it.
I think it's a big lie.
EMILY: So, about halfway through my Gawker career,
my year at Gawker,
I was asked to be a guest on an episode of Larry King Live
that was being guest hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Emily Gould. She's the editor of the website Gawker.com.
- Hello, Emily. - Hi, Jimmy.
And it turned out that Jimmy Kimmel had some very specific beef with Gawker.
Gawker had written about him in a way that he didn't like.
My problem is, uh, you post things that simply aren't true on, on the site,
and you do no checking on your stories whatsoever.
I'll give you an example.
There was a story about me that popped up on my Google search.
It said, "Daily Gawker Stalker:
When Isn't Jimmy Kimmel Visibly Intoxicated?"
The Gawker tip line was just flooded with so many people
just wanting to tell me what an idiotic,
teenage, stupid... whore I was.
And how dare I besmirch the name of Jimmy Kimmel?
Honestly, I think that there's a shifting definition of what is public
and what is private space for everyone, not just celebrities.
The internet, blogs, Myspace.
No one has the reasonable expectation of being able to walk down the street
and not have what they're doing be noticed by someone anymore.
Well, that's just-- that is just a terrible thing though, isn't it?
- I mean, just-- - Is it really?
- Yeah, it is. - I mean, I think it's great
that we're not putting people up on a pedestal
and worshiping them anymore.
I think it's good that people are acknowledging
- that celebrities are real people. - Yeah, you're throwing rocks at them though.
- I mean, that's not-- - It's not okay to say false things about anyone.
- I'm not talking about-- - Well, you should check your website then.
Thank you for, uh, talking to us.
Anderson Cooper 360's on at the top of the hour. Filling in--
EMILY: I just had, like, a mini nervous breakdown
and couldn't go to work,
like, couldn't really make myself do anything.
After I stopped working at Gawker, I became a target of Gawker.
It would be funny if it hadn't been so, you know,
the same punishment will be visit on, on you
that you dished out to so many people.
You know, and I eventually sort of had a lot of therapy
and in some way got over it.
But it's something that has still like--
I'm clearly not like, totally okay. And it's 15 years on.
[slight chuckle] Oh, what is this? Wait, what is it? Oh--
- ZACKARY: It's Morgan. - Oh! [gasps] Oh, my God.
She is so... pretty. I gotta send her some of my lashes.
Oh, my God. That's-- I mean, I-- Do-- I was like, "Who?"
I mean, no way. No way.
Oh, my God. Gorgeous.
Look at her lips and everything. Oh, my God, she's so pretty. Oh, my God.
I really want to meet her. I got to c-- I got to contact her.
That is insane. D-Did-- I mean... [softly] oh, my gosh.
So cute. Oh, my gosh.
Holy cow! Gorgeous. How-- Amazing!
I mean, sorry. I'm so shocked.
Wow! I mean the little cute boy that came over to me-- Oh, my God.
That's cra-- That's incredible. That's amazing.
[phone ringing]
TINSLEY [on phone]: Hello?
Hi, Tins. How are you?
Hi.
How are you?
Um,
- um, I mean, I've been-- - I missed you.
I've been better, but I've been well,
and it's so funny, I couldn't even believe that you are living in Chicago.
I mean, I would-- when I was living there a year ago,
it would've been nice to know and have a, a girlfriend there because...
- Yeah. - ...' cause I was there with barely anybody that I knew.
Really?
It would've been so fun to have you there.
That's so crazy.
No, I would've loved to have seen you back then, too.
- Where are you now? - I know.
Well, I mean, right now, um, since I left Chicago
because this, you know, whatever, it's, it's a long story--
I'm so sorry to hear that, hon. TINSLEY: I-I know, it's--
Hon, are you still hosting stuff?
I still do, um, a lot of--
Yes. I still do a lot of different things. Hosting and stuff.
And a lot of the things, actually that I, I work with a lot of,
are animal shelters and, and rescues and things like that.
And actually, I'm coming to Chicago this week
and I'm going, um, because I'm coming--
'Cause I still-- I work for PAWS Chicago.
I'm on their board of directors.
- Congratulations. That's amazing. - And they have this thing, um--
Let me know how I can help you with that, okay?
Well, um, you can help me
because I would love for you to come with me to the event on Friday.
It's this Friday.
- Okay. - It's at the Drake Hotel.
- Lovely. - It's black tie, seated dinner,
um, dancing.
And, um, you can bring somebody, too.
I don't know if you're dating anybody now,
- but you can totally bring somebody. - I'm not. I just broke--
- You're not? - I just broke up with someone.
Well, I'm not either, so great. [laughs]
Lovely.
We can just have fun.
Um, I am bringing my dogs, Strawberry and Shortcake,
because this event you can bring your dogs
and I'm dressing them up. They're basically gonna match me.
Yeah. Well, I'm so excited I get to see you.
- I know. I'm really excited to see you. - This is gonna be so fun.
It's gonna be our New York Times piece all over again, one--
[Tinsley chuckles] Right?
Every time you and I unite, it's, it's always written about, I swear.
Yes. No, it-- That was so--
[Morgan laughing]
That piece was so adorable.
Okay. Loves that.
- Looking forward to seeing you, okay? - Bye, babe.
- Mwah. Love you. - Okay, me too. Okay. Bye.
- Bye. - Bye.
Here you go. Thank you.
ZACKARY: What do you think?
I felt, I felt myself falling back into who I was before
in the sense of, like, I'm always, like, a support-supporting character
when I'm no longer a supporting character.
And I have to remind myself that I'm also, like, a lead.
[giggles]
I'm just thinking of, like, where I need to go
to, like, get, like, a nice gown.
'Cause, like, you know, I haven't made my Chicago debut.
♪ uptempo music playing ♪
Hi.
MZ NEON: Girl, ugh, finally. Wow.
Good to see you. Thank you.
- Bitch! - Do I look okay?
Girl, you're a vision. [Morgan gasps]
Thank you.
What's going on?
Ugh. Not much. I'm excited to see these looks, girl.
MZ NEON: Do you see yourself being trophy wife?
[Morgan chuckles] Or do you see yourself being, like,
the boss bitch?
What's the dream? Like--
I would love to inspire others to live their best truths.
- Right, which you're already doing. - And that could be,
and that could be, like, a beauty line.
- Hm. - That could be skincare line.
- Hm. - That could be hair extension line.
- Hm! - That could be a dress line.
- Right. - That could be so many different--
It could manifest in so many ways.
D-Do you see yourself ever getting married?
MORGAN: Yeah.
- I could see that for you. - Really?
Yeah.
Have you ever thought about what your wedding announcement would say,
- like, in the newspaper? - Oh, yeah.
I have written it, like, so many times.
- Really? - Yeah.
Okay. What is it?
It's like, "So-and-so, son of such-and-such
"was married yesterday to Morgan Olivia Rose,
the daughter of no one."
Word! [Morgan laughs]
And then it's like, "The bridegroom, 20 or 30-something,
is a graduate of Harvard College."
"Mrs.--" You know, 'cause it's a wedding announcement
with my new last name.
And it has my age. No one has to know my age.
"...is a former transsexual prostitute and film star."
[laughs]
MZ NEON: It's so important to show your story
and to show that with all of our stories,
like, we're not all one thing.
We exist outside whatever boxes people want to put us in.
ZACKARY: What's next for you, Tinsley?
You know when people ask you what you do or things or what do you want to do?
It's like, I don't really know what to say.
Sometimes you just, like, give, like, a generic answer. Like--
Actually, it's the same answer I give now.
I say, "I just want to be a housewife."
A real housewife.
Not a, "Real housewife," but a real housewife. [laughs]
Because, I mean, in a w-- I mean, I don't only want to talk about
all of my business stuff I want to do and things,
but I also do want to have a child and be a housewife.
A real one. Anyway. Sorry. Tangents.
♪ uptempo music playing ♪
[indistinct chatter]
I need to cut something. Sorry.
♪
What? Oh, thank you. [indistinct chatter]
You're going to take my phone and my, uh--
ASSISTANT: Purse.
Hi, girls. Okay.
They're very well-behaved, but they're also--
I told them it was going to be just for a little bit,
but we're going to have to do all this and then it's gonna be done.
♪
[indistinct chatter]
I rescued them from China and I swear to God,
they are so-- they're just so grateful.
♪
I thought I was going to live here. I was like, living in Hancock.
I was engaged, too. It's a long story.
♪
I promise. Okay. [indistinct chatter]
♪
[Tinsley chuckles]
Sorry. Hi.
So, Morgan just told me she's backing out. She doesn't want to come.
- Oh, my God. She can't. - Yeah.
- Why? - She's like, I don't know. She's--
Okay. Well, let me talk to her, maybe.
- Yeah, like-- - She didn't feel like, like, secure enough with me or something?
- I mean, I don't know. - I don't know.
Okay, let me-- Can I talk-- Can I talk to her for a second?
Yeah. Well--
♪ pensive music playing ♪
[ringback tone]
AUTOMATED VOICEMAIL MESSAGE: ...is not available.
At the tone, please record your message.
[phone beeps]
MORGAN [on phone]: I honestly don't feel like attending this event.
What do I have in common with these people anymore?
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Do I have any of the same values?
We used to look up to the same accomplishments,
like, "Oh, my God, she's a brand ambassador for X, Y, Z."
Maybe we live in a time period where I can be
a brand ambassador for something, but am I?
No, I'm not. It's not anywhere in my life where I want to be.
What am I these days? I'm a transsexual call girl.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Yeah, I like that. Good.
Very nice.
[indistinct shouting]
KELLY: It's all very mythological.
The concept of celebrities, the family, beautiful people, the freaks.
The one who wins, one who lose. One who came from nowhere.
The one who died,
the one who was so rich, they had everything and lost it all.
[indistinct chatter]
These are all stories
and these are the people who want to be the stars of the stories.
And in order to be the stars of the story,
you need a storybook.
And then you need somebody to read the book
and then somebody to build the amusement park about it.
And that's how it fucking goes.
So, I guess you need to decide,
do you want to be the consumer, the consumed or the creator?
'Cause those, those are the three lanes.
MORGAN: We think we're in control.
But these narratives are pre-written.
These stories create our reality.
I know the way out. I know the truth.
Our differences make us divine.
And maybe that's what makes difference so terrifying.
I will write my story and make it trip.
There, I am divine.
I will create my own American divinity.
♪ Rich Girl by Nina Simone playing ♪
♪
♪ There's a rich girl ♪
♪ You know you've gone too far and you know it don't matter anyway ♪
♪ You can rely on your old man's money, you can rely on your old man's money ♪
♪ Don't you bitch, girl, and you've gone too far ♪
♪ And you know it don't matter anyway ♪
♪ Money, money won't get you too far, get you too far ♪
♪ Don't you know, don't you know ♪
♪ That it's wrong to take what is given you ♪
♪ So far gone on your own ♪
♪ And you can get along, but you gotta be strong ♪
♪ You can never be strong ♪
♪ There's a rich girl ♪
♪ You know you've gone too far and you know it don't matter anyway ♪
♪ Hey, you can rely on your old man's money ♪
♪ You can rely on your old man's money ♪
♪ It's a bitch, girl, you know you've gone too far ♪
♪ And you know it don't matter anyway ♪
♪ Money, money won't get you too far, get you too far ♪
♪ High and dry, have a little rain ♪
♪ It's so easy ♪
♪ To hurt others when you can't feel pain ♪
♪ So far gone on your own ♪