Interview with Camilla Wright, editor of Popbitch gossip news (UK)
***************************************************** They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If popbitch editor, Camilla Wright, is going to hell, I want to be right there beside her. *****************************************************
"I’ve heard really good things about him from people who know him, and I’ve heard really bad things about him from people who know him. The jury is still out." – Camilla Wright on Robbie Williams ----------------------------------------------------
* Owen Wilson is not her fan. * David Beckham is a frequent subject. * Madonna dedicated a song to all the Popbitches out there. -----------------------------------------------------
>> G for Gossip<< Or G for Genius?
What originally started out as an anonymous hobby six years ago has been a full-time job for the past three for brunette bombshell Camilla Wright, journalist and editor of the weekly e-newsletter. Popbitch was created with the best intentions of giving readers the information that celebrities and their publicists tried so adamantly to guard and prohibit during the course of normal professional interviews.
Taking advantage of information that industry insiders and personal assistants had on offer, Camilla nurtured Popbitch on nights and weekends, turning juicy gossip into a sharp-witted pithy newsletter format which has reached all the corners of the globe. Who knew what a phenomenon this little hobby would become?
----------------------------------------------------- Popbitch newsletter has 350,000 subscribers. -----------------------------------------------------
>> You want the truth?<< Some people can't handle the truth
As history has shown with past ‘predictions’ about David Beckham and also about Madonna, Popbitch often breaks celebrity stories. “After years of doing this and working with the same people, you get a feel for how reliable their information is. A lot of the people I talk to or get mail from are good sources. When something just comes out of the blue, I’m suspicious. But here, just like in anything else, sometimes you do just get it wrong, and then you apologize.” Camilla often finds herself apologizing to lawyers who get their knickers in a wad over the content of the newsletter or message boards. Owen Wilson has a pretty whiny lawyer.
-------------------------------------------------- Popbitch’s biggest audience is in the UK, followed by Australia, and now the USA. --------------------------------------------------
>> Dial P for Popbitch << When saying sorry just isn’t enough.
When she’s good, she’s very good. When she’s bad, she sincerely apologizes. Sometimes, though, those apologies aren’t enough, and readers launch personal attacks like publishing her home address and phone number on the internet. Thanks to one too many a crusade which led to calls in the middle of the night Camilla Wright no longer has a landline.
----------------------------------------------------- A Japanese media company tried to buy Popbitch, but Camilla politely declined. -----------------------------------------------------
>> Big Questions << What people are asking this week
Which popular American Grammy award winning musician is an avid reader of Black Tail magazine?
----------------------------------------------------- Camilla is considering offers to take her career into 3-D, on MTV and also radio. -----------------------------------------------------
1. She has a degree in politics from Oxford University but after graduation found the people in the professional politics field to be so boring she moved into financial journalism. Lucky for us she finally moved into music/celebrity journalism (now those politicians are barrels of laughs in her weekly newsletters).
2. She writes regular features for Grazia, The Observer, and the Sunday Times, to name a few…
3. She loves the contact she has with her readers. She thinks its great to be able to interact with so many people each day.
4. Her business cards just have her name, popbitch, and a mobile number on them.
*What food (or design icon) best describes celebrity gossip these days? How has it changed over the past five years? Where do you think it's going? Sushi - you think its going to be light and fun but more often than not its disappointing and stodgy. How has it changed? It's an insatiable beast creating celebrities purely to have something to put in celebrity magazines. Where’s it going? Bigger, and more of it. But a huge chasm between people celebrities and people who are famous for actually doing something for which they are celebrated.
*What's the first thing you notice in a restaurant? The lighting. I hate badly lit restaurants.
*Place/food you can't eat after you heard the story about... Aubergines . TV celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay claimed to a friend at a celebrity cocktail party that he named his London restaurant Aubergine after the end of his penis.
*The last piece of art you fell in love with? I have a beautiful painting by British artist Rose Wylie. She makes faux-naive brightly coloured artworks and its a 6ft by 3ft drawing of me drinking a cocktail. Also love L'absinthe by Degas, saw it recently at a big Tate Britain exhibition.
*If $ were no object, you'd buy what for your home? I want the floor of my lounge to be the light-up dance floor from Saturday Night Fever.
*Describe the chair you sit in when you do your best writing? I sit on a big silver bean bag called "The Fatboy".
*Magazine you can't live without. When in America I get obsessed by People, here in Britain Private Eye, and I think the photography in Italian Vogue second to none.
*Celebrity you're inexplicably intrigued by. Tom Selleck - Magnum PI
*You can almost always believe what they say about... Paris Hilton. I spent a week with the Hiltons a couple of years ago - before they got famous. I liked Paris but she has an amazing knack for getting herself into troubled.
*In the words of my favorite Sex & the City guest AnthonyMarentino, I'll give you £100 to tell me something really bitchy about someone you know... Ha ha - it'll take more than a £100
***************************************************** (Off the record, she said she’ll tell me anything I want to know for £5.) *****************************************************
>> Chart Predictions << New entries for the week of 3 April
************************************************** Thanks to: CW **************************************************
Old Jokes Home: A patient says: “Doctor, last night I made a Freudian slip. I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say: “Could you please pass the butter.” But instead I said: “You silly cow, you have completely ruined my life.”
