That first day, we showed up and were let in by Anna Nicole’s purple-haired assistant (who, at Anna Nicole’s urging, got a large tattoo of Anna Nicole’s face on her arm). Anna Nicole was in her bedroom, so I had the crew set up their equipment out on her balcony. It was a clear, sunny Southern California day in the nineties, and the gorgeous view would make the perfect backdrop. An hour later, Anna Nicole came out and greeted me politely.
“Where are we going to do this interview?” she asked.
“Right out here,” I said, leading her to the balcony. She stopped at the door and shuddered.
“Ohhhh, can we not do it outside?” she pleaded in her babyish Texas twang. “It’s so cold!”
Wha’? Okay, maybe she hadn’t been out yet and didn’t follow the weather forecast. Or notice that really large bright ball of fire in the sky.
“I’m sorry—cold?” I tried again.
“Ohhh,” she shivered again. “Soooo cold!”
“No, sweetie, here, why don’t you just check and see? Give me your arm, let’s just put it outside and I’ll show you!” I tugged her arm through the open door and she yanked it back in alarm.
“Ooooh! I have goose bumps!! Please, can’t we do it somewhere else?”
We spent twenty minutes resetting the cameras in front of the marble fireplace, and I went to fetch Anna Nicole again.
“Okay, so we’ll just stand here with the mantel behind us, how about that?” I chirped. My smile was starting to hurt.
“Uh, no,” she pouted. “I don’t wanna stand that long.”
Okay, so ninety degrees was cold, and ten minutes was an eternity. We had some perception challenges to overcome here. But E! was banking on this childlike woman with boobs that probably each needed a channel of their own, and I had been handpicked to babysit her. I was stuck, and I had no choice but to humor her. “We can just stand there for a couple of minutes, then walk around and talk,” I offered. With diplomatic skills like these, I really belonged in Geneva, not the San Fernando Valley.
“Ohhh,” she sighed, making what I understood to be another objection. “Do we hafta walk?”
How lazy can someone be? You just slept twenty hours, and you can’t fucking walk across the living room? I kept the thought to myself and poured extra syrup over my words before asking her, “Where would you like to do the interview?”
“Can we do it on the floor of my bedroom with my stuffed animals?” she suggested.
WTF? Acting like her request was a totally normal one, my crew and I followed her upstairs and went into her bedroom, which by the way was very heavy on Hello Kitty. Very heavy. Hello Kitty clocks, Hello Kitty pillows, Hello Kitty towels. There were also stuffed animals piled everywhere, more than a hundred of them, easily. We sat on the floor while Anna Nicole and her assistant decided which stuffed animals could sit with us. Only fifty made the cut. I clutched a teddy bear and stroked its stuffed head so Anna Nicole would feel reassured. I just wanted to come down to her level of insanity. I started asking questions: Why did she want to do a reality show, what was going to be in it, was there any romance, did she have a boyfriend? All of a sudden, in the middle of answering a question, Anna Nicole started screaming. Really screaming—like, full-throated, horror-movie chainsaw murder screaming. I thought she was having some kind of seizure or maybe an acid flashback.
“THERE’S A SPIDER ON MEEEEE!” she cried. She was flailing around, looking at her chest in sheer terror.
“Anna, no, no, no! Honey, that’s a microphone!” I shouted over her. She stopped screaming.
“Oh. I thought that was a tarantula. That scared the behooties outta me.”
Riding in the back of the van with the cameras on the way home, the crew was still cracking up.
“That woman was high as a kite!” one of them crowed.
“No, she wasn’t,” I insisted. Drugs have never been my scene, and I pretty much need a lab report to tell me whether someone is using any. “Guys, it was an honest mistake. The microphone does sort of look like a spider!”
My two weeks with Anna Nicole were like a bizarre mini–reality show within a reality show. The highlights: Anna sitting on the couch in her living room under Hello Kitty blankets, yelling for someone to get her a Yoo-hoo; Anna drinking Yoo-hoos; Anna “remodeling” her bathroom. The latter announcement had me all excited, until we discovered that the renovation involved Anna moving her Hello Kitty clock from the bedroom to the sink, placing a pink sponge in the tub, and adjusting a Hello Kitty bathmat on the floor. Move over, Nate Berkus. It had more empty calories than my year’s residency at House of Pies, but The Anna Nicole Show was E!’s biggest reality hit ever. There are entire episodes where Anna herself appears barely coherent. I ended up on the “Anna Nicole beat” at E! for years, covering the legal battle over the fortune left to her by the eighty-nine-year-old oil tycoon she had married at the age of twenty-six, and later reporting on the disputed paternity of her daughter, Dannielynn.
When I heard in 2007 that Anna Nicole had died of an overdose in a Florida hotel room, I felt sad for her. There are some people who can handle sudden fame and fortune and others, like those lottery winners you hear about, whose unexpected riches destroy them. Anna was a really sweet person, just living a life she was never meant to live, and she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.
—
The callousness of Hollywood and its false beauty have always offended Bill’s Midwestern values, and he made me promise at the outset of our relationship that any life we built together would play out on a kinder stage. If we ended up having children together someday, Bill said, I had to agree right then and there to raise them in Chicago. “I don’t want to live in L.A.,” he said. “If we ever get engaged, the deal is one year there, then we’re out.” I happily accepted his terms. I’m not a California person either. Chicago and I clicked just as naturally as Bill and I did. I love that city and feel instantly at home whenever I’m there. I figured I could just commute when the day came, and maybe do more segments out of New York, which would cut my white-knuckle time on a plane in half.
A month after we began dating, Bill invited me to come visit him in Chicago for the Memorial Day weekend. My work schedule had become a lot more predictable since Mindy blew away in her reported $20 million golden parachute. She had been replaced as CEO of E! by veteran broadcast executive Ted Harbert, whose affable style and amazing track record of bringing hit shows to the air (The Wonder Years, NYPD Blue, My So-Called Life, to name a few) promised to boost both morale and ratings at E! My contract was coming up a few months after he arrived, and I still intended to leave. His first day on the job, Ted wanted to meet all the hosts. This was new. I had never set foot in Mindy’s office. As soon as I launched into my background with E!, Ted interrupted.
“Why aren’t you the anchor?” he wanted to know.
“Don’t ask me,” I responded. “Your guess is as good as mine. I used to ask myself the same question, but I don’t anymore. My time here overall has honestly been an amazing experience and I’m fine with it for now.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Ted said. “The E! News ratings are terrible, and I’m getting rid of the anchors. Effective immediately, you are going to be made anchor. We’ll be announcing it tomorrow.”
I left the room and didn’t breathe a word to anyone, for fear I would jinx it.
At a full staff meeting of the newsroom the next day, our boss relayed the news from Ted: “John and Alisha have left. The second bit of news is that Giuliana will be the new anchor.” Everyone was shocked. Someone raised a hand and asked who the male anchor was going to be.
“Actually, there is no male anchor. Giuliana will be the sole anchor.”
Now I was shocked.
“That, I did not know,” I murmured.
There was something else I didn’t know, and wouldn’t find out for years to come: They were planning on canceling E! News in two weeks, and my promotion was just a magnanimous gesture on Ted’s part to make up
for my having been treated like shit. I was going to be the last anchor of E! News. There was nothing to lose by giving me my moment in the sun before they pulled the plug.
That night I found Ted in a cluster of executives at a party the network was throwing for a new E! show. I walked up to them. “I just wanted to say thanks for believing in me,” I said. “And, Ted, I just want you to know, I’ve dreamed of anchoring E! News since high school, and want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! And mark my word, I’m going to get those numbers up and make this a great show!” I had somehow been teleported back to the Miss Maryland pageant and was finally giving my killer speech. I topped it off with a toothy pageant smile.
“Giuliana, don’t put that pressure on yourself,” Ted said. “Just have fun. Don’t worry about numbers and ratings. Promise?”
“Yeah, but I need one thing. I need to be managing editor. I need to change the content and line of vision. I argue every day with the producers. You’re going to give me the power to change the show.” Pageant girl on a testosterone rush, this was new. Go big or go home.
“Okay,” Ted agreed.
I was elated. Every morning, I would get into screaming matches with the executive producer, Peggy Jo Abraham, and the line producer over what the story lineup should be. It was a battle between Old Hollywood and Young Hollywood.
“No one cares about Harrison Ford!” I would rail. “Lead with Britney Spears!”
Now that the reins were in my hands, I fully intended to make E! News the cool, fun broadcast for and about Young Hollywood.
“I think we should lead with Paris Hilton shopping on Robertson Boulevard,” I declared my first morning as managing editor. Paris was a club-hopping heiress about town who starred with her friend Nicole Richie in The Simple Life, a reality show Fox had picked up where the two young socialites tried to do manual labor.
“Are you crazy?” Peggy shouted. “We have Harrison Ford!”
“No one gives a shit about that space odyssey movie, Peggy! I want to lead with Paris Hilton. She’s the new ‘It girl.’ ”
“You should never lead a news program with a photo of nothing happening!” Peggy countered. But I did. Young Hollywood was about fashion, beauty, hot designers, and young socialites who got out of limos drunk with no underwear on. I changed our tagline to “We’re your hookup to young Hollywood,” and let our competitors at Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood have Old Hollywood. (Except for Clooney. I will always give Clooney a pass.)
Our ratings shot up 10 percent in one week.
Two more weeks were tacked onto our cancellation date. The numbers kept climbing. The network brass quietly gave the program a stay of execution, carefully tracking our numbers in case this was a fluke. A year after I took over as anchor and managing editor, Ted Harbert surprised me with a full-page ad in Variety with my picture, thanking me for making the show number one. The whole building posted it all over, from elevator banks to reception, to every wall in the newsroom. It was awesome, and I finally felt recognized and appreciated.
Nothing, though, could ever match the thrill I felt when I spent that Memorial Day weekend in Chicago with Bill. Next to the day our son was born, it still ranks as the absolute happiest time of my life, because it was when I knew with soul-deep certainty that I had found the person I was meant to be with forever. Bill and I had known each other for less than two months, but the long-distance relationship limited the time we got to spend together. Away from L.A. and its demands, Memorial Day belonged entirely to us. Beforehand, I went to visit my nutritionist again. Bill, like me, has a major sweet tooth, and I had told him I was “on a no-dessert kick” for a couple of months, but I hadn’t gone into detail about being a sugar junkie in recovery. One of his favorite things about Chicago, he had told me, was a killer chocolate layer cake from one of his favorite restaurants. There was no way he wouldn’t want to share that with me.
“I think you can do it,” the nutritionist said. I’d been sugar-free for nearly three months. I went ahead and indulged in Chicago—it was every bit as decadent and delicious as Bill had promised—then I jumped right back on the wagon that Monday. I waited anxiously to see if the sugar cravings were going to kick in again, but night came and I felt no magnetic force drawing me to the Cheesecake Factory. I took this as the best of omens: with Bill, I actually could have my cake and eat it, too.
Bill would later tell me that he knew I was the one that weekend, too. We had gone for a motorcycle ride along the North Shore and got caught in a torrential downpour on the way back. We pulled over in a little mall that happened to have a Crate and Barrel. “Let’s go buy some towels,” Bill suggested. We went inside and he randomly pulled a couple of thick, plush towels off the shelf. I examined them more closely. “Whoa, whoa! Too expensive!” I objected. I had another idea.
“Just start drying off and fold them up and put them back,” I said.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said as we rubbed ourselves dry and I stuffed the sodden towels back on the shelf. “We better buy those.”
“Are you kidding? We’re not going to spend a hundred dollars on towels! Let’s get out of here!” We jumped on the getaway bike and sped off. Bill thought he’d met the frugal girl of his dreams. Most women he’d known would have gone for the towels, added a couple of robes, and kept shopping.
Our first big fight happened that August, just as I was about to not turn thirty. When we first met, and age came up in casual conversation, I fibbed. I was still twentysomething in my head and not ready to put a “three” in front of my age. “Oh, good,” Bill said when I claimed I was twenty-nine. He admitted that he had this rule against dating women over thirty, because he felt they were “in a hurry.” He had just turned thirty-five himself. As my birthday approached, Bill grew worried and then angry that no one was reaching out to set anything in motion to celebrate my big three-oh. Man, her friends are horrible! he thought, racking it up to the inherent self-centeredness of L.A. Obviously he was going to have to arrange a surprise party himself. He got in touch with Monica. She played it cool but called me with a heads-up. When we all went out to dinner and my approaching “big day” came up again, Monica had had enough. She fixed me with a hard look.
“If you don’t tell him, I’m going to,” she warned.
I confessed to Bill that twenty-nine was my “Hollywood age.” I was actually about to turn thirty-two.
He was livid, and refused to see anything funny about it.
“Oh, c’mon,” I said. “What’s the big deal? Everyone has their Hollywood age!”
But to Mr. Salt of the Earth Midwest, this was a major moral transgression. Even worse, it called my entire character into question. If I was going to tell white lies, Bill argued, then how could he trust me about anything?
I didn’t think a woman claiming to be twenty-nine instead of thirty-one, especially in the entertainment industry, was tantamount to torturing small animals or instructing people to wire their life savings to a Nigerian bank account because my passport had been stolen, but my Bill was not cutting me any slack.
“Either we’re going to be honest or we’re not going to be together,” he said.
I swore I would never lie to him again. (Occasional misleading for the greater good doesn’t count, for the record. The time I blindfolded him and took him for a birthday surprise that he thought was going to be a Cubs game and turned out to be an appointment for Botox injections, for example, was not dishonest because he’s the one who jumped to a false conclusion. And then wouldn’t get the Botox. Big baby. I thought it was the perfect gift, because he had been moaning and groaning about getting old.)
Our next falling-out happened when I was the one who felt deceived. We were taking our first big trip together, to Hawaii, and Bill started out on a sulky note when I discovered that the upgraded seats I’d gotten us weren’t together.
“Forget first class,” I snapped. “Let’s trade these seats for a couple in coach.”
“I’m six foot four
, I’m not going to sit in coach,” he said.
When we got to Maui, we rented a Jeep to drive around the island. I had tried to wax my lip with a homemade wax kit the night before, and had this huge, painful welt on my mouth as a result. Of course, I couldn’t admit to waxing my lip, so I made up some bullshit excuse about how I burned my lip drinking hot cocoa the night before. Thankfully, he bought it, but being unkissable does not make for a romantic vacation. Truth is, I was really expecting Bill to propose to me on this trip. I thought I might jump-start that with a little conversation.
“So where do you see us in six months?” I asked.
“Maybe we’ll be engaged,” Bill answered.
Maybe? WTF? What aren’t you sure about?
I silently fumed. For ten hours, I refused to speak to him. My lip hurt, anyway. I finally cooled down enough to tell him how I felt: “We’ve been mapping out our future together since we met, and now I’m feeling like maybe you’re not serious. Do you not see us going somewhere?”
“Of course I do,” Bill said. We were still learning about each other, and Hawaii was an important lesson for me. Bill likes surprises. He’s the type of person who doesn’t want you to tell him what to get you for Christmas. He likes to give it thought and plan every little detail without someone else stage-managing everything. I had trusted Bill absolutely from the moment I met him—you know when you’re with someone worthy of that—but I still needed to learn how to let go. He wasn’t about to tell me then that he wanted to pop the question someplace more special than the front seat of a rental Jeep.
We spent our first Thanksgiving together with my parents, and Bill pulled my father aside when I was out of earshot and asked for permission to marry me. Babbo gave his blessing, and Bill began planning an elaborate engagement. He began scouting for perfect diamonds to design my ring. Jewelers would FedEx him bags of diamonds, and he would sort through them with his mother and sister Karen, handpicking only the flawless ones. “I’m not looking for the biggest ones,” he told them. “Size isn’t what’s important; they just have to be perfect.”
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