“It’s only for the summer,” you told all who asked when your husband moved out last year. But fall has turned to winter – and he’s not only stayed away, he’s shacked up with somebody else, and by all accounts, is happy as Snoopy after nailing the Red Baron. And now, everyone’s wondering if you’ll keep your post position on Manhattan’s fast track without his power to propel you … “ – The Word 02-09-03
The above invective is one of the meanest blind items we have read in years. Everybody in the industry knows that the above item is about fashion publicist Nadine Johnson and her husband the editor of Page Six of the New York Post Richard Johnson. I mean really, from someone of Michael Gross stature as a great writer for him to stoop to the level of say hintmag’s gossip monger Horacio Silva is very sad. From Silva we have come to expect that kind of nonsense and who, by the way, as the paid pet of Amy Spindler, thinks he can blind item just about anybody’s personal or private life.
Nadine can be real difficult at times. That is true. We also had plenty of trouble with her in the past. But it is also true that Michael sounds like he is trying to even the score with her for past “injustices” that he thinks she has committed against him. Regardless of the truth of what he said, all he really accomplished was to make Nadine into a victim and call into question his own reputation as a writer worthy of respect.
