Gawker: defamer, elliot mintz

The 2008 Defamer Flack Honors

Seth — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:13:48 EST

Of all handler subgenus, perhaps none is taxed more thanklessly than flackus mendacitus, or the garden variety publicist.

Always at the ready to swat away a junket reporter when the questioning strays off movie-pimping topic, or phone in a craftily worded, 4 a.m. denial ("Not only was my client not acquainted with the dead hooker in question, he wasn't even in Las Vegas this weekend. He was shooting his upcoming guest appearance on Entourage!"), it's time Hollywood's hard-working plate-spinners get the recognition they deserve.

Without further ado, then, we proudly present The 2008 Defamer Flack Honors. Winners, please come forward to collect your trophy (a clipboard-wielding thirtysomething woman hurling herself upon a grenade, cast in the finest bronze), and say a few carefully chosen words of appreciation.

Most Loyal
Elliot Mintz
Taking on Paris Hilton as a client is not a task for the fainthearted; but doing it with the gusto and blind obedience demonstrated time and again by Elliot Mintz elevates him from the rank-and-flacky-file to the level of some kind of publicist archangel. Not only did Mintz return to his post after his client's failed attempt at tossing him under a bus during her suspended license trial, he slathered himself, for reasons still not completely understood, in orange face paint for her birthday festivities. We're choking back tears right now.

Best Liar
Liz Rosenberg
Madonna's rep Liz Rosenberg had the publicity equivalent of SoCal wildfires to contend with this year, as if dropped by parachute with nothing but a watering can and her own slippery wits to fend off the singer's raging divorce inferno. It was enough to make a flack long for the relative innocuousness of new-new-face scrutiny, tales of corset-crappings, and other assorted moustache rides.

Still, even the most gifted of professional liars are bound by human constraints. As we tried in vain to place all the appropriate pushpins in our increasingly convoluted MadgeRod CynthRavitz Clusterfuck case map, Liz & Co. themselves could barely keep track of which fibs were meant for us, and which were never meant to leave the walls of Spin Control HQ.

The Worst Publicist in the World
Jonathan Jaxson
True, we crowned Jonathan Jaxson The Worst Publicist in the World back in November, with two months and one Jeremy Piven handroll-related P.R. nightmare to go before 2008 closed out. Didn't matter. The second we met Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon's spokesperson, and listened to him tell an Atlanta CBS affiliate's morning show audience of his plan to fake a nude photo scandal that (surprise!) backfired, eventually leading to his client and her fellow Cheetahettes being disinvited from the Macy's parade, we knew we had met a bold new breed of publicist, far deadlier than any that came before. This is the P-2000: Incompetent Robot P.R. Killing Machine. Fight the future.

Hilton Flack Elliot Mintz Elicits Angry Statement From Nat'l Assoc. for the Advancement of Oompah Loompahs

Seth — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:52:57 EST

Ringing in her 27th birthday a little early this weekend—plus the recent addition of a new litter of 13 pomerhuahuas to her ever-growing doggie menagerie—Paris Hilton celebrated by indulging her inner wild-child, throwing on a tiara, pink hair extensions, and a pair of varicose-vein-patterned tights, and table-dancing the night away at a party virtually devoid of pissy rap stars. What inspired off-again/on-again grenade-jumper Elliot Mintz to show up with a face smeared in a brownish-orange substance isn't entirely clear, however. While Mintz initially insisted the look was the result of having tripped and landed face-first into Lisa Rinna's back on his way into the festivities, the meticulous, ear-to-ear coverage suggested something else entirely:

That the fiercely loyal flack had finally succeeded in doing what publicist-watchers had long feared he would, managing to squeeze not just his nose, but his entire head and neck up his demanding client's hindquarters.

[Photo: WENN]

Frock horror! Paris celebrates her birthday as a punk princess [Daily Mail]

Paris Hilton Finally Free Of Criminal Svengali Elliot Mintz

Seth — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:11:04 EDT

With Paris Hilton reportedly blaming Elliot Mintz in open court for her failure to understand the finer implications of a suspended license, it was unsurprising that the trusty PR manservant would be swiftly dispensed with. The flack's shitcanning instantly elicited a conundrum: Who issues the P.R. statements for disgraced P.R.-statement-issuers? (That would be Mintz himself, who holds no ill will towards Paris, her family, or anyone else associated with those backstabbing motherfuckers.) As for Paris herself—the wonky eye at the center of this particular celebrity shitstorm—well, she feels it's just not fair:

"I told the truth," Hilton told photographers waiting outside her Los Angeles home on Saturday night.

"I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted. I don't deserve this."

Her 45-day sentence looming, set adrift without even a single dependable flack who'd gladly fall upon his pen for her, we imagine the next few weeks will be both challenging and critical for the embattled heiress and fragrance mogul, filled with emergency family meetings in which she chokes back tears explaining to her entourage of teacup-sized dogs, pellet-pooping farm animals, and tree-dwelling marsupials that, "Mommy's going away for a little while, but she'll be back real soon—you hear me? Real soon. And things will be hot again. I promise you that," as a symphony of concerned bleats, mews and simian yelps responds in dismay.

Paris Hilton says jail term cruel, fires publicist [Reuters]

Lack Of Thumb Dead Giveaway That Paris Hilton Isn't Servicing Cee-Lo In Photograph, Says Flack

Seth — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:41:38 EDT

An explicit photograph circulated the internets recently, featuring what looked to be a kneeling Paris Hilton taking what could only have been a well-deserved break from the rigorous task of attending the needs of an amply endowed, unidentified male. (The photo can be seen here, and if our description hasn't yet made this abundantly clear, it's thoroughly NSFW.) Our initial reaction to seeing the image—that L.A. Superior Courts have rather unorthodox guidelines for what can and should constitute 40 hours of community service—was quickly replaced by skepticism, as something in the trashy manicure, the cheap hotel carpet, the glimmer of enthusiasm behind her lazy eye, said to us, "Photoshop blowjob magic." Still, there will always be a market for this kind of digital artistry, and as the picture wound its way around the web, Hilton's camp became increasingly unamused, ultimately prompting a well-reasoned denial from warhorse flack Elliot Mintz:

Another Paris Hilton sex tape? Photos of the porn-prone heiress in a compromising position with Gnarls Barkley singer Cee-Lo surfaced on MediaTakeOut.com yesterday. But her rep, Elliot Mintz, tells us: "Note the positioning of her hand and the absence of the thumb. It appears to me to be a cut-and-paste job." Well, it's certainly some kind of job! Paris sent along word from "The Simple Life" set that "she's only met [Cee-Lo] once, backstage at a concert."

Mintz makes a strong case for the tampering argument, as every other image of Hilton mid-fellatio to yet surface has prominently featured the party heiress's sturdy thumb, in a trademarked hold she calls the "clutch and anchor." Its absence is a tell-tale fraud giveaway that seems to have eluded the editors MediaTakeOut.com, who have pulled the photo from their site after receiving a strongly worded letter from Hilton's lawyers, and whose tales of Cee-Lo-servicing, for now at least, appear to be untrue—as much as we wanted to believe the recipient out of camera range was breathing heavily in a Darth Vader helmet, and exploded into an ecstatic "Ha ha ha bless your soul" at the precise moment of climax.

Side Dish [NY Daily News] [First item]
HA HA! PARIS THREATENS TO SUE US [Media Take Out]