Johnny Weir Not Thrilled by Magazine Story
by LauraS on Aug 20, 2010 7:29 AM EDT
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PrintI would think Johnny Weir would have been happy to have a whole New York Magazine feature on (especially considering all he is basically doing a full-time job of building his brand - this can't hurt), but he was not too happy with his portrayal, according to the New York Daily News.
Johnny Weir can take a few insults, but don't upset his mom. The Olympic skater tells us he wasn't thrilled with how New York magazine portrayed him in its current issue, but what really cheeses him off is that his mother "was offended" by the feature.
"She said it seemed I wasn't serious and I was just another New York-area person just going to parties," Weir says, before explaining: "Yes, I was getting ready for red-carpet events, but I was going to them to work and network." Weir also grouses that the feature "attacked my people. ... I can be told to be subjected to a gender test, I can have my clothes attacked, but when you attack my people, my army, that's when I get pissed off!"
A spokeswoman for New York magazine responds: "We love Johnny Weir - as Amy [Larocca] writes in the piece, he's ‘talented and clever and beautiful,' and we think that comes through in the profile and photos."
Has anyone read it? What do you think? I haven't been able to read it yet, but most of the articles I see about Weir nowadays involve the latest event he was at, so I'm not really surprised the article focused on red-carpet stuff.
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The photos were beautiful, outtakes phenomenal – dark, edgy. Interview was horrible. Read a good review of it here: http://misfitmimes.blogspot.com/2010/08/guuuuuurrrrrrlll.html
It didn’t focus on red carpet stuff, but it was badly written, badly edited, and there were numerous factual errors, some of which were later corrected in the online version; though I’m not sure about the print version. Beautiful photos though, the outtakes (seven of them at http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2010/08/the_spectacular_johnny_weir.html ) alone are woth the article. The writer had such an interesting, intelligent subject to work with, and she chose to use the tired old focus on his sexuality, plus jump all over the place in her focus, and subtle insults of his friends and him as well. Not a well focused article at all!
I finally read the article and am not sure what he was complaining about – I don’t see it as really insulting his friends but perhaps if it were about me I would have been more sensitive about it. I think the extensive focus on his sexuality is old news and really boring.
To be honest, I think Weir is really lucky. He was able to perpetuate the myth that he has been pushing in the media that he would have won the Olympics or a medal if he had only been more PC like Evan Lysacek – and of course everything he says about it goes completely unquestioned because the reporters don’t know anything about skating. It’s insulting to the skaters who did medal (all of whom I believe deserved their medals) for him to keep saying that. And the press just eats up whatever he says about it because he is an American who didn’t fall, so obviously he must have deserved a medal. I believe he was underscored at the Olympics, but he has gotten much further in the public relations game by saying he’s the victim of biased conservative judges than he ever would have with the bronze medal.
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Laura
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