Get Me Risa Heller!If you’re Jeff Zucker or Mario Batali or Jared Kushner and you’re trying to survive a bout of very bad press, she’s the one you call.
ByShawn McCreesh
the media
CNN Minus CNN+Nope, you weren’t going to watch it either.
Chris Cuomo and Jeff Zucker Speak OutCNN’s president hired the star in one of his first big moves at the network, then was forced to fire him over help he gave his scandalous brother.
Robert Pattinson Got Hit by a Taxi!Don’t worry, his face is okay. His perfect, angular face. Some other things happened to celebrities too, in our morning gossip roundup.
Citigroup Posts $2.5 Billion LossA lot of big news at the banks today — but there’s also crazy stuff going down with Jeff Zucker, Dan Rather, Brooke Astor (from beyond!), and Barack Obama, in our daily industry roundup.
company town
Charlie Gibson’s ‘World News’ Reaches an All-Time LowBut it WAS over the holiday weekend, so we forgive him. Plus, another dude climbs the ‘Times’ building, Lehman considers Jersey, the Plaza has a big flip, and summer associates get down on their knees, in our daily industry report.
company town
Fox News Sicced Bill O’Reilly on NBC’s Punk AssThin-skinned media bigwigs trade insults, Microsoft and Yahoo continue to make eyes at each other across the boardroom table, and a mysterious, rich felon moves into the Plaza … all in today’s roundup of media, finance, law and real-estate news.
Naked Pictures of Gisele and Carla Bruni Sell for Big BucksWhich one of these models is worth nearly $100,000 more than the other naked? What recently divorced Romeo is already trying to get his new lady knocked up? And did the tabloids miss out of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s wedding because they couldn’t get pictures? Or are they racist? All this and more in our daily gossip roundup.
company town
There Goes the SchneighborhoodRichard Gere has put his apartment in Julian Schnabel’s Palazzo Chupi on the market, private-equity execs come down to earth, Sam Zell continues to be wacky, and Jeff Zucker and Harvey Weinstein fight like a couple of queens over ‘Project Runway’ in our daily roundup of real-estate, finance, media and law news.
company town
Karl Rove to Finally Profit From Professional Secret-KeepingMEDIA
• Here come the NBC News pay cuts: Jeff Zucker plans to slash anywhere between $20 and $40 million, including an entire level of MSNBC management. And thanks to the writers’ strike and fears of recession, future cuts may only get worse. [NYP]
• Karl Rove may be offered $3 million for a memoir, in which we may find out how much he got in exchange for his soul. [NYP]
• At least one person thinks the press did a heckuva job in reporting the lead-up to the Iraq war — former top White House communications adviser Dan Bartlett. [NYO]
gossipmonger
Heath Ledger Has a Supermodel in His SightsHeath Ledger has been stalking Gemma Ward around town and also tried hitting on (taken) Heather Graham. The server who brought Chelsea Clinton the wrong appetizer at Irving Mill may or may not have been fired. Calvin Klein is vandalizing his Houston Street billboard for the opening of the New Museum on the Bowery. NBC honcho Jeff Zucker doesn’t want the strike to end because retail advertisers have already bought up ad space, and now production costs are zero. Kimora Lee Simmons was overheard saying that the reason she invited Russell Simmons’s new girlfriend, Porschla Coleman, to meet the “major players” at Simmons’s birthday last month is because she “wants this stupid bitch to get a clue.” Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. just bought an $18.75 million condo in the Carhart mansion on East 95th Street.
