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PREVIEW VERSION
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Jon Kelly
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Good morning,
Thanks for reading The Backstory, your weekly review of the best new work at
Puck.
It was another incredible week here at Puck: Matt Belloni unpacked Patrick Whitesell’s new venture and Jen Salke’s defenestration; Lauren Sherman previewed the Prada Group-Versace M&A fervor; Dylan Byers pondered a CNN boomerang dynamic; Eriq Gardner identified the latest front in the war over celebrity life rights; Rachel Strugatz investigated Gwyneth
Paltrow’s Goop exit options; Sarah Shapiro spotlighted a heritage brand in need of a turnaround; and John Ourand got the backstory on Peyton Manning’s new business partner. (See above: Whitesell.)
Also, Marion Maneker chatted again with Christie’s outgoing C.E.O., Guillaume Cerutti; Julie Davich trekked up to the Netherlands for TEFAF; the great Bill Cohan
captured the agita on Wall Street over the Paul Weiss capitulation; Julia Alexander deciphered NBCU’s latest streaming strategy; and Scott Mendelson performed an autopsy on Snow White.
Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell surveyed the Signalgate fallout; Julia Ioffe offered a readout of the Vance Doctrine; Abby Livingston explained the Democrats’ latest pivot; and Peter
Hamby caught up with Rep. Ro Khanna.
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Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it
all came together.
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FASHION
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Lauren Sherman
games out the possible Prada Group resuscitation of Versace and details the latest Saks mishegas.
and…
Rachel
Strugatz dissects Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest P.R. dump.
meanwhile…
Sarah Shapiro digs into L.L.Bean’s non-boat-and-tote P&L.
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ART MARKET
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Marion Maneker
evaluates the health of the South Asian market and reconnects with Guillaume Cerutti.
and…
Julie Davich
gathers the tea from Maastricht.
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HOLLYWOOD
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Matt Belloni
reveals the nuances of Jen Salke’s ouster and presages Patrick Whitesell’s next life.
and…
Scott Mendelson
examines the Snow White apocalypse.
meanwhile…
Eriq Gardner uncovers a surreal talent agency kerfuffle.
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WALL STREET
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Bill Cohan
takes the temperature on Wall Street amid the Paul Weiss debacle.
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MEDIA
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Dylan Byers
assesses Mark Thompson’s chess moves at CNN
and…
John Ourand analyzes the Patrick Whitesell–Peyton Manning deal.
meanwhile…
Julia
Alexander runs the numbers on Peacock’s latest sports pivot.
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WASHINGTON
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Leigh Ann Caldwell
foreshadows the next shoes to drop in Signalgate.
and…
Julia Ioffe explores Vance’s foreign policy influences.
meanwhile…
Peter Hamby
dishes with Rep. Ro Khanna and Abby Livingston covers the latest Democratic crisis of confidence.
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PODCASTS
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Dylan and Julia Alexander inspect YouTube’s stranglehold on the news industry on
The Grill Room.
and…
Equity analysts Michael Nathanson and Rob Fishman discuss the Netflix-YouTube dynamic with John on The Varsity.
and…
Lauren catches up with The
RealReal C.E.O. Rati Sahi Levesque on Fashion People.
and…
John Heilemann and Sen. Mark Warner chew over Signalgate on Impolitic.
and…
Matt
and Dude Perfect C.E.O. Andrew Yaffe weigh in on the creator economy on The Town.
and…
Julia Alexander and Peter digest the Snow White disaster on The Powers That Be.
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On Wednesday evening, I headed to the Residence de France in Kalorama for my favorite night of the year:
Puck’s annual First Amendment gala in partnership with the French embassy. Washington, always a beautiful city, is at its prettiest during cherry blossom season. And it’s hard to walk down those beautiful colonial streets in the northwest part of town without feeling shrouded in the mists of history.
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Photos: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Puck
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We started the event three years ago in partnership with Ambassador Laurent Bili, and in
honor of General Mark Milley, who made a rousing toast that evening that brought tears to many eyes. Last year, we honored the incomparable Andrea Mitchell. This year, I was pleased to bestow the award upon David Ignatius, the extraordinary and long-tenured foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post. David epitomizes all the best of Washington—superbly precise, omnipotent, circumspect, even-keeled, and a real shit-kicking reporter
to boot, a true legacy of the Ben Bradlee imprimatur.
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Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Puck
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The First Amendment event was conceived for entirely simple and yet profoundly important reasons—as a display
of unity in a culture, and a town, that’s so often divided. As anyone who has passed even a remedial high school civics class knows, the First Amendment is vital to the fabric of our country, and it enshrines the very principle that allows such disagreement in the first place. It’s also the undergirding literature of Puck—a business in which our peerless authors are also equity holders, a company where the bylines appear on the cap table.
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Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Puck
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You don’t need me to tell you this, but the French really know how to put on a party. Throughout the
ambassador’s historic residence roamed British ambassador Peter Mandelson, Irish ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Senator Chris Coons, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Jimmy Panetta, Norah O’Donnell, Jake Tapper, David Chalian, Reema Dodin, Dmitri Alperovitch, Kasie Hunt, Jessica Dean, Jim
Acosta, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, John Harris, the great Tammy Haddad, Risa Heller, Phil Rucker, Ashley Parker, and many of my partners at Puck. Leigh Ann Caldwell, our trailblazing eminence on Capitol Hill, held forth in the drawing room. Julia Ioffe welcomed guests in the foyer while Peter Hamby greeted old
friends and Dylan Byers worked the room. It was a swell night. I was proud to give Ignatius a chuckle when I introduced him with a passage from a piece that Dylan had written in praise of his work more than a dozen years ago. The piece featured one particular laudatory quote worthy of reconsideration. “Everyone in Washington would love his level of access,” one journalist told Dylan. The guy’s name happened to be Jeffrey Goldberg.
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Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Puck
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In his prepared remarks, Ignatius was charming and candid. He reflected on his tenure at the Post,
the years with Bradlee, Bezos’s rehabilitation, etcetera. He also indicated that he’d be staying put at the paper’s opinion section despite the recent headaches that have attended the institution’s transformation. Watching him from the wings, I admired his wisdom and sangfroid, and the example that his career has set for the rest of us. He’s a model of the profession, and precisely what we aspire to live up to at Puck.
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Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Puck
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