How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less Read online

  “Yes, I am.” She nodded.

  I kept saying it. “You’re Karen Robinovitz! Karen Robinovitz!”

  She didn’t seem annoyed by my enthusiasm. I was so excited to tell her I had been following her career from the beginning—from the “Extreme Dating” article, to the wicked profiles of real-life princess parties for three-year-olds, to the televised stints on Entertainment Tonight and CNN as a trend expert, to her sex columns about dating moguls in the Hamptons. So of course I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “You’re the girl who was masturbated by the eighty-year-old sex therapist in Marie Claire!”

  She blushed, but took it in stride.

  We traded e-mail addresses, found out we owned the same silly clothes and were addicted to the same tabloids, and were soon discussing the finer points of Mötley Crüe’s biography over “special salsa” at a neighborhood Mexican dive.

  It was more than infatuation. It was a meeting of kindred spirits. And we have lived happily ever after ever since.

  Almost Famous …

  Until one fateful Wednesday afternoon, when our editor at Marie Claire magazine called to give us our new assignment. “Do you two want to do a story on becoming famous? You’ll have two weeks to get famous—be in magazines, get invited everywhere, hang out with stars, and become a celebrity,” she said.

  DID WE? WANT? TO? BECOME? FAMOUS? DUH!!!

  For fourteen angst-ridden, exhausting, and thrill-a-minute days, we had to do whatever it took to become a boldface name in the annals of celebrity. Fourteen days to navigate the nightlife, host A-list parties, canoodle with a star, get our photographs in the society pages, appear on national television, and score hefty sacks of swag (industry-speak for “free stuff”).

  We used every ounce of knowledge we had picked up from writing about the famous flock to pull it off. We both wound up in the party pages of the New York Post, on the tube, and in obscenely expensive borrowed clothing.

  Karen had a birthday party that rivaled Matt Damon’s, wearing $2 million worth of Harry Winston diamonds, including the twenty-two-carat ring Whoopi Goldberg had worn to the Oscars, as well as a bodyguard named Lou who was straight out of a Scorsese film! Melissa hosted an intimate dinner at Orsay, a posh Upper East Side restaurant attended by the city’s most powerful gossip columnists and spent a glorious week in a five-star resort favored by the likes of Britney Spears!

  It took fourteen days to achieve our common goal for the last thirty years, but we did it!

  We’re famous.

  Sort of.

  This book is our story of begging, clawing, crying, borrowing, cheating, lying, stealing, and bribing our way to celebrity. It is also a guide to claiming your own fame. We provide how-to tips to stardom. Whether you live in New York or Omaha, Milan or Middle America, you can be legendary, the most sought-after kid in town, the one everyone wants to befriend.

  So fasten your seat belt, prepare yourself for very little sleep, and get ready for your close-up!

  Days 1–2:

  A “BRAND” NEW YOU

  As a star, it’s important to be instantly recognizable, even when you’re hiding in plain sight in a baseball cap and sunglasses. What is Gwyneth without her beautiful blond locks? J. Lo without her bodacious butt? Gwen Stefani without her steel midriff bared? Celebrities are like boxes of cereal—packaged and promoted to offer a consistent, bite-size message, so that everything from the clothes they wear to the color of their hair is a reflection of their particular trademark.

  The first order of business on your search for the spotlight is to start thinking of yourself as a product, a commodity, and a brand. Witness the golden arches of McDonald’s. Every time you see the giant yellow M in the sky, you know you deserve a break today. You, my friend, will need to acquire your own set of golden arches, that certain je ne sais quoi that will make people think—even subconsciously—of you every time they see it. The trick is being true to yourself—and possibly coming up with a fabulous stage name (flirt with prestigious identifiable brand names like Kennedy or Rockefeller, or think about adding “Von” or “de” before your last name to give it an upper-crust spin).

  You also need to be original. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but the public can spot a cheap knockoff a mile away (although for some reason boy-band amnesia seems to set in every five years; the success of ‘N Sync was spawned from the Backstreet Boys, which in turn was coded from the DNA of New Kids on the Block, which really stemmed from New Edition, a total reproduction of the Jackson Five). Take it from us, the Fame Highway is littered with celebrity roadkill: starlets and also-rans who never elevated themselves from the Blond Clone Army to Hollywood Heaven.

  If you don’t want to become a bloody mess, discarded like yesterday’s trash, your brand must be strong—and likable. In private you can be as quirky, odd, and contradictory as you want. But in the public eye, your brand should always come first. Whether it’s the calling cards you hand out at a party, the type of drink you order at a bar, or the kind of car you drive and the esoteric monikers you name your kids (Demi Moore named her three daughters Rumer, Scout LaRue, and Tallulah Belle, for heaven’s sake!), you need to adopt a larger-than-life persona and live it to the hilt.

  Exhausting? Maybe. But Hugh Hefner didn’t become Hef without his silken PJs and breast-implanted accessories.

  This chapter will help get you started by teaching you to establish your brand name. We will delineate the types of personas you can adopt (nothing like a little multiple-personality disorder amongst friends). Once you pick your MO, we’ll show you how to use it to your advantage and keep up appearances, from creating a business card and letterhead to assembling your own press kit, honing your personal celebrity style, bulking up your social calendar to its desired A-list status, and asking for what you want without making apologies for it (it’s called being high-maintenance, and nothing’s wrong with that).

  Be warned, all of this may come with possible public humiliation, but that’s to be expected. Renée Zellweger didn’t have us at hello until she made at least a dozen films that flopped, including Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1994.

  THE BEGINNING: ACQUIRE THE FAME PERSONA

  THE NAKED TRUTH

  I was Rollerblading down Second Avenue on a sunny Monday morning. At Forty-second Street I stopped at a red light. I didn’t spot any oncoming cars, so I decided to go. The second I started to roll, a Volvo came from out of nowhere and clipped my left leg. I went flying back toward the curb, but I was in so much shock that I got right back up. Hordes of people surrounded me, asking if I was okay. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I have to go to work,” I said.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” a woman shrieked in a high pitched, anxiety-ridden voice that led me to believe she was very concerned. “You’ve been hit by a car.” I looked down. My left leg was bleeding. I thought: Oh, my God, my leg is bleeding. Then I thought: Oh, my God, I can see my leg. My pants had gotten caught on the fender of the car that hit me … and ripped off my body … completely! And I wasn’t wearing underpants! (I know, I know, Mom always says to wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident … and I had none!)

  I was standing on Forty-second Street during morning rush hour, wearing nothing but Rollerblades and a T-shirt. It was mid-August. No one had a jacket to lend me. I was horrified (though I did sport a very fierce Brazilian bikini wax). I cried, “I’m not wearing any pants!” like a madwoman until the ambulance came to my rescue with a sheet, which I wrapped around my lower half like a sarong.

  Twenty stitches and one fat scar later, the story spread far and wide. I once had someone from Philadelphia tell the tale of the “naked blader” back to me! I was a living urban legend. That’s when it dawned on me: I could be famous for being naked.

  Look at what nakedness did for Sharon Stone’s career. Rose McGowan once showed up to the MTV Awards wearing a see-through dress made of silver chains—and a G-string—and the ensemble turned he
r from Marilyn Manson’s girlfriend to an It girl. Even Leo’s been photographed nude sunbathing in the Caribbean. And when was the last time you saw Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, or Toni Braxton covered up? Since I managed to survive the accident and the humiliation, I decided to brand myself as the girl who doesn’t mind being in the buff.

  I spent the last six years taking on the most intimate assignments for magazines like Marie Claire. For one story, I had to walk around the city streets of New York—topless. (I was photographed for the publication, covering my areolae with nothing but a magazine.) And for another, I had intercourse with my boyfriend in front of a sex coach who was there to improve our technique.

  For the record, I do not have a perfect figure. Far from it. But I have always been comfortable in my skin. And doing these kinds of stories has helped me become even more at ease with my body. I built a reputation as the daring writer who likes her birthday suit. Editors assign me their most outlandish ideas, knowing that if it requires me to bare a private part of myself, I’ll do it.

  Once, an editor asked me to spend a few weeks living in one of those legal brothels in Las Vegas in order to do an exposé. I was all over the assignment … until they told me I’d have to sleep with a john. When I said no, my editor was shocked. “Just one,” she said, as if that would make it okay. I was upset for a second. I couldn’t believe they thought I was that kind of girl. Then I realized, Wow, I really have branded myself well!

  So when a gallery-owner friend introduced me to Alexis Karl, an up-and-coming figurative artist who is known for creating seven-foot-tall oil paintings of naked women, I thought, Here’s my chance for immortality! “Please let me take my clothes off for you,” I begged. She agreed to paint me. I was on my way!

  My portrait, which required over thirty-five hours of posing, was shown at the Red Dot Gallery in Chelsea, in New York, in September of 2002. I was on sale for $8,000—and I will forever be immortalized as the famous naked girl, residing above the sofa in some man’s living room!

  THE OVER-IT GIRL

  When I first got the assignment to claw my way into the limelight in two weeks, I decided to position myself as the newest incarnation of species It girl. It girls ran around the city without stockings (even in the dead of winter), danced on tables while breaking champagne flutes, and gave in-depth interviews about the contents of their wardrobes. It was an established nightlife brand—and one I thought I could easily fake my way into—after all, how hard could it be? I’d pop over to some parties, wear some tight clothes, and boom! I’d be crowned the latest queen in the It-girl stakes. God knows I can put away the free drinks!

  I even found the perfect venue to display my new It-girl persona: the aptly named It-girls premiere party for the It-girls documentary starring a whole host of It girls. The film featured the day-to-day lives of two junior socialites, Casey Johnson and Elizabeth Kieselstein-Cord. Casey and Elizabeth both had bonafide It-girl chops. Elizabeth’s last name was a handbag. Casey’s was a Band-Aid. She was also a shampoo. And a detergent.

  The publicist for the party was nice enough to put me on the list after I sent numerous faxes requesting entry and providing detailed, unimpeachable proof of my journalistic credentials. (I sent her a fawning note on swiped magazine letterhead.)

  But styling myself as an It girl was harder than I thought. It girls don’t just appear out of nowhere. It girls aren’t born. They’re self-made. Plus, the label is commonly bestowed on chicks who don’t try so hard—or at least, those who don’t look like they do. Just look at Chloë Sevigny, who at eighteen perfected the ingenue’s indifferent shrug at celebrity in a fawning profile in the New Yorker, which fanned the media fascination even more.

  Which leads me to ask, if a girl attends a party and no photographers take her picture, did she even attend?

  I would have to make sure my presence was recorded somehow. I begged a good friend who worked at a magazine to put my picture in their party pages. “If you get Patrick McMullan to shoot you next to a celeb at the It-girl party, we’ll do it,” she promised. So the night before the party, I called social shutter-bug Patrick McMullan’s office. I groveled on the phone and spent fifteen minutes explaining my situation to Patrick’s helpful assistant. She said Patrick would be happy to do it; I would just have to go up to him at the party and brief him on my mission.

  Before the party, I spent two hours at a beauty salon getting my hair blown and fake eyelashes glued to my real ones. I put on a Julia Roberts-inspired cutout black top and skinny leather pants. The pants were incredibly tight and stuck to my thighs like sausage casing. I decided I should probably not drink anything so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom, because who knew if I could zip myself back into them again. My It-girl debut would have to be a sober one. So much for dancing on tables.

  I arrived at exactly seven o’clock, as the invitation demanded. There was a line of paparazzi at the front of the restaurant, and several more photographers and camera crew inside. I strutted inside, projecting It-girlish vibes. I telepathically communicated my It status by preening on the red carpet. Sadly, not one photographer looked up. No one took my picture. It was disheartening. And there I was wearing borrowed designer clothes and no bra! Just like a real It girl!

  I decided to find Patrick immediately, which was easier said than done, as he was the most popular person there. The man was mobbed. It girls of all stripes were throwing themselves in front of his camera. After all, he was radiating Itness himself, with a television crew from the Metro Channel in tow. I had naively believed that somehow he would just “notice” my fabulous presence and immediately snap my picture. But no.

  Storing up my courage, I squared my shoulders and went up to him. “Patrick! It’s Melissa de la Cruz!”

  He nodded vaguely.

  “I need to get my photo taken?”

  “Huh?”

  “I need to be photographed next to celebrities! I’m doing the It-girl experiment?”

  He brightened, “Oh, yeah!”

  We grabbed the nearest It girl we could find, and landed Estella Warren, who was also hosting the party and the third star of the documentary. She had recently appeared half-naked and practically mute in the Planet of the Apes. She was a model-turned-actress, and most definitely It. Estella looked a bit befuddled upon noticing me posing next to her, but she gamely slung her arm around me and smiled for the camera. Patrick squeezed the trigger. Flashbulbs exploded in my face. I noticed the rest of the paparazzi whispering to each other. Soon enough they, too, were taking my picture with Estella.

  For the rest of the evening I squeezed myself next to photographs with both the Band-Aid and the handbag heiresses, mugged next to aloof six-foot-tall models, and followed Patrick around like a pesky stray dog. I met Vera Wang. I was rebuffed by Monica Lewinsky. An editor from People asked me who I was. At one point in the evening, Patrick convinced his television crew to film me. He introduced me to his television audience as “a girl who goes to a lot of parties.”

  In other words, I was an It girl!

  I was also exhausted.

  Branding myself as the new It girl didn’t turn out to be as glamorous as I’d expected. Instead of flitting about like a social butterfly and enjoying myself at a fancy party by guzzling magnum-loads of free champagne, I had spent it as a sweaty and anxious wreck. I didn’t even have time to stuff my face with the free hors d’oeuvres. I was too agitated because I had to keep one eye out for the celebrities at all times.

  This girl was officially over It.

  Until the next week, of course, when I saw my picture in the party pages next to Estella Warren.

  “You’re an It girl!” the party’s publicist cooed on my answering machine. “Congratulations!”

  Even friends e-mailed their astonishment at my newly It status.

  I scrutinized the picture. My eyes were slits. I had two chins. You could see the outline of my nipples through my see-through shirt. Yikes! But there I was, on the same page as Aerin L
auder and Uma Thurman!

  I might have It on the brain, but I loved every minute of it.

  Can’t Figure Out What Brand Name Is Appropriate for You?

  TAKE THIS BRIEF QUIZ TO FIND OUT

  1. You’re on the red carpet and Joan Rivers is approaching with the microphone. Last season she called you one of the worst dressed. Your reaction is as follows:

  A. You send your assistant to tell Joan you are not available for interviews. You give her a dirty look when you pass by and cozy up to another reporter right in front of her. You also do your darnedest to make sure everyone in your circle ignores her, too.

  B. You are nothing but charming. You smile sweetly and kill her with kindness as you tell her Mr. Gesquiere designed your fabulous dress himself.

  C. You’re too high to even make it down the red carpet.

  D. They couldn’t pay you enough money to go to such a morally decrepit, corrupt zoo where no one boasts an ounce of individuality or intellect! But you’re happy to thank the academy from your ranch in Carmel.

  E. You just can’t wait to show off your new implants. You happily pose for the camera, revealing your plunging backline (and new butt tattoo) that’s so low, the censors are having an anxiety attack.

  F. Joan who?

  2. It’s been an hour, and your helicopter has not yet arrived to whisk you off to the Hamptons for the weekend. Your reaction is as follows:

  A. You lose it and maliciously scream at—and threaten to fire—a heliport administrator who is not under your employ. Don’t they know who you are?

  B. You say, “Damn those silly flying things that are never on time. Oh, well.” You put your bicycle in the back of a taxicab and make it to the beach in time for the clambake.

  C. You chalk it up to another exhibition of the unfairness of the world. You always get the short end of the stick, even if you have the largest home on Dune Drive.