Two women at different stages of their career, both were recently promoting books, both behaved like assholes.
She was the young blush of her time, muse to an icon, dream girl to a generation. So it wasn’t a surprise when over 200 people showed up to a book signing. Here’s what *should* happen at a book signing: you stay and sign books. Many bestselling authors stay as long as they can, for hours, making sure they have a personal interaction with each and every reader, often posing for photos. Even Gwyneth Paltrow understands this. Sometimes it’s impossible. Like JK Rowling often has 3 or 4 thousand people showing up so what she’ll do is she’ll sign hundreds of boxes in advance and on the day of, she’ll commit to a couple of hours, sometimes more, to hang out with as many of her fans as possible.
But this woman? When this woman saw that 200 people were waiting for her, she scowled. Then exhaled, loudly.
“I have to sign for all of them?”
Well, um, as many as you can…?
“But I have dinner reservations.”
She signed for just 20 people. Then made her reservation while the others were left out, cold.
And what about Miss All Kinds Of Sweet and Sad? She fronts like an angel, like she could never possibly throw attitude ever, but we’ve all heard the stories from the set – how she rages around like she lives exclusively on the top tier and everyone else is her chorus.
At several signings in multiple cities, the behaviour was the same. Upon arrival, she barked orders to her staff and bookstore staff about what exactly she would tolerate: hustle people through the line, cut them off when they want to talk, push them through as quickly as possible, and “spare me from all of their f-cking sob stories”. In other words, these people are beneath me but you lowlifes are going to take the fall because even though they mean nothing, I still want them to love me and give me their money.
And so, with a fake smile on her face, giving the performance of her life, she’d greet her public kindly, while her people practically threw her fans up towards the signing table, several at a time, tossing them together like abused animals, crunching them close, a speed meet-and-greet on crack. How fast was it really?
At one stop she got through 250 people in half an hour. This, apparently was too slow for her so she gave sh-t to her handlers and at the next stop, what an accomplishment – 350 people in just over 20 minutes.
20 minutes! 350 people!
Can you imagine how that must have moved? How they would have been treated?
And then she was out. While fans were still coming in with their wristbands, bewildered that it was over already.
Who?
I’ll tell you on Monday at SMUT. Last block of tickets was just released – click here. Are you coming?
June 19, 2014 at 7:07 AM
