Celebrities may loathe the paparazzi, but not I. It’s never a bad idea to involve them in your story. The presence of a gang of sweaty, shouting photographers can add a frisson of excitement and an action-movie element to an otherwise conventional profile. Although if the two of you are being chased, it might mean that they are mistaking you for a “galpal,” which is incredibly insulting to your celebrity. They are used to scoring models and hot bartenders, not pale, spongy journalists, so do not be insulted if they make an extra, even frantic, effort to evade pursuers.
In one case, when I was in Los Angeles with Ben Affleck, this did not happen. During our meeting, he was fragile and uncharacteristically moody, having recently broken up with Jennifer Lopez. Usually press people adore him because he’s bright and quippy and delivers just the right funny, original quotes that add sparkle to a piece. On this day, however, he declined to perform and I faced my usual dilemma: While I understood completely that he didn’t feel like being a dancing monkey, I needed to secure a decent interview. My patter flopped (Courtney Love had given a particularly unhinged radio interview that morning and I relayed some of the gruesome tidbits, but he didn’t bite), so I asked eight questions in a row about the movie he was promoting. Nice, safe ground, and I saw his tensed shoulders relax a little.
Soon, however, I had to ask him about Jennifer, and I began to sweat. Apparently they had made a pact not to talk about the relationship. “You’re not going to get anything,” his rep said. My editors wanted something, anything. You can squeeze a lot of publicity out of even one sentence.
I tried the “let’s work together” approach. “You know I have to ask you about Jennifer,” I began as my neck started to itch. He stared at me, his mouth forming a small, ironic smile. Uh-oh. Hives were starting to erupt. This always happened when things got awkward. Why, why didn’t I wear a turtleneck?
“Ask away,” he said with a sharp laugh. “You can always try.”
We began a long dance. He claimed that the media turned the two of them into a spectacle; I gently countered by saying that they helped the media along. He argued that they didn’t court the paparazzi. They didn’t pose for any magazine covers and only did one or two major interviews. They were just living their lives, he said, but the paparazzi captured their every waking moment. My hives, at this point, were in full effect. It’s never pleasant to confront people, but when the person is a film star, it adds a surreal element that throws you completely off balance. I prayed he couldn’t see that my neck looked like a plate of ziti. Chin down. Chin. Down.
After some tensely polite back-and-forth, he decided to prove his point to me. He grabbed his keys and suggested we go get a taco at Poquito Mas, one of his favorite Mexican joints. “Just watch,” he said, smoothly piloting his black Beemer into the parking lot. “This will take three minutes. Maybe four.”
Sure enough, just as I was placing my order for a veg burrito, a guy in a pink shirt appeared and began snapping photos from a van in the parking lot. Frequently, Affleck said, the parking valet tips off photographers for a couple of bucks. We sat down in the taco joint’s outdoor space with our trays. “Hide the tape recorder,” he said quietly. I shoved it behind his supersized soda. I always try to hide the tape recorder, anyway, in the vain hope that the celebrity is lulled into thinking it’s a regular conversation. We proceeded with the interview as the guy snapped away. Because we were laughing a lot, Pink Shirt thought it was flirtatious banter and ventured closer and closer.
After we finished our meal, Affleck glanced at him and said, “Uh-oh. He’s losing interest. We need to look like we’re hiding something.” This was becoming sort of fun. As I took my tray to the trash can, I pretended to do a double take and then squished myself unobtrusively into a corner, as I had seen celebrities do. I crossed my arms and kept my eyes down. He went bonkers. Snap snap snap snap snap. “Let’s hold hands,” Ben whispered.
“Too obvious,” I said back.
“Well, then, I’ll give you a quick hug,” he said under his breath. He put his arm around me. I tried in vain to relax and assume a loving expression. “You’re waaaay too stiff,” he whispered in my ear, which made me laugh. We walked to the car as another photographer pulled up in an SUV and Pink Shirt, three feet away, snapping continuously as he shuffled backward. This is why there are so many shots in the tabloids of famous people looking irritated. Invariably a caption will run that says that the celebrity is frowning because they’re heartbroken or fat or rehab-bound or out of work, but ten to one they were just exasperated because they literally couldn’t walk forward. If you stop and pose, sometimes they will drift away. Sometimes they yell things. (“Big fan! Big fan! Over here! Can you look in the camera?”) In the case of Pink Shirt, he was eerily silent, even when Affleck asked him questions.
The next day, when I returned to New York, there was a bidding war in the tabloids for the photos of Ben Affleck and his new paramour. One of them paid eleven thousand dollars for the shots. The photo that ran shows Affleck, his arm tightly around me, making me laugh so hard that I’m showing some unfortunate Seabiscuit-style choppers. We looked for all the world like carefree lovers, which neatly underscored Affleck’s assertion that despite many shots of himself and Lopez making out in color-coordinated outfits, he wasn’t always stoking the media frenzy. After all, he was just getting a taco, minding his own business, right? He proved his point, the photographer got paid, and I got to be Mystery Galpal for the day. Everybody won.
A similar fiasco occurred during an encounter in London with Mel Gibson.
We were having lunch at the Ivy, a restaurant that was the ultimate in trendiness at the time of our chat. Earlier in the day, I had joined him at a sound studio, where he was recording dialogue for Braveheart, the story of William Wallace, the Scottish rebel who liberated his country from English rule in the thirteenth century. In those pre–Passion of the Christ days, Mel still had the ability to quicken the female pulse, and on that particular morning, he was dubbing dialogue from a love scene. The sound room’s inhabitants were two schlumpy sound guys, Mel, and me, so as he said the same line over and over to his onscreen ladylove, he directed it at me, just to be goofy.
“Ah love yeh,” he said in a Scottish burr, staring at me intently. “Alwehs hahv.” He wasn’t satisfied with the delivery—it was a pivotal moment in the film—so he did the line probably ten or twelve times, while I, God help me, fell deeply in love. I like to think that my presence enhanced his acting abilities on that day, because I stared back at him with the kind of unblinking worship that even the actress playing his medieval sweetheart couldn’t have reasonably conjured up.
Then we jumped into a car to head for the Ivy, while Mel and his sturdy English driver joked around the whole way. At the restaurant, he was funny and affable and occasionally ate off of my plate. The food sharing went one step further after he ordered some spinach. As he talked, tiny pieces of spinach took to the air, gently mingling with my fish, like a garnish of chopped parsley. I didn’t mind.
As we chatted away, a manager stole over and whispered discreetly into Gibson’s ear. It seemed that the paparazzi had been notified and were massing outside of the Ivy. As we got up to leave, Gibson instructed me to keep my head down. “Don’t smile or wave,” he said. “Don’t make eye contact. Just get into the car as quickly as you can.”
When you see photographers jostle a celebrity, it seems exciting, but it’s actually disorienting and—when a lot of them have gathered—frightening. As we attempted to get to the car, hordes of hollering photographers blocked our way, flashbulbs firing. It was chaos. Head down. No smiling. Gibson grabbed my arm and propelled me decisively forward, in a very Braveheart manner.
“Mel!” they yelled in the tumult. “Who’s the girl?” I suddenly realized that they assumed that he was cheating on his wife, Robin, with me. Which, for a man who fended off strippers, had to be a little bit of an insult, let’s face it.
“Who is she?” screamed one photographer. They surrounded me as I attempted to open the car door, one of them stomping on my foot as he got pushed. Gibson’s driver quickly forced the door open and shoved me inside. My heart was jumping as though I’d had a hit of crack. How did people get used to this? They pounded on the door of the car and chased us down the street as we pulled away.
When I returned to my office in New York, there was a packet of pictures sent by a news agency waiting in our photo department labeled “Mel Gibson and an unknown woman.” I am smiling. I am making eye contact. I look as if I am atop a float in a parade.