MY TOP 5 WILDEST MEDIA MOMENTS WORKING WITH SOME OF THE WORLD’S BEST ATHLETES
Sports content is having an unprecedented moment after Covid and the great cable tv unravelling and I’m totally here for it…
Watching Netflix’s RECEIVERS over the weekend brought me back to some of the greatest times in my life working in live sports. Growing up, my three older brothers were collectively all-state in multiple sports and my dad was named coach of the year in Oregon for the work he did with high school and college athletes, so live sports is in my DNA. During the time he was coaching wide receivers for Willamette University, I found myself regularly in the locker room with the smell of ben-gay and the vision of metal ice baths and men in various athletic gear pretty much everywhere I looked. Somebody probably should have wondered why a 6 year old girl was in the men’s locker room, but it was a more innocent time and these memories brought me nothing but joy as the mostly-overlooked little sister being allowed to participate in the big show. (Also, honorable mention for this list is the fact that Dolly Parton’s business manager was an alumnus and she came by to sing at halftime on more than a few occasions. )
Although it made absolutely no sense to anyone in my Hollywood social circle at the time when I started a PR firm out of my apartment as a single mom with a mix of daredevil pro athletes and irreverent brands, it made total sense to me as I was, effectively, raised by wolves in ace bandages and ice packs. I’ve had to clean vomit off my car after being projectiled out the back window traveling about 45 down Sunset Blvd after an X Games closing party and apply neosporin to eyebrows that were singed off by a skate session filmed for MTV on a ramp doused in gasoline and lit on fire. I’ve delivered a witty retort to a brand executive who screamed “where’s all the pu**y in this party” at me in front of Brock Lesner, changed the shirt of an injured and heavily medicated athlete who nodded out and drooled on his contractually obligated sponsor’s shirt in the greenroom before a live televised studio appearance, and I’ve been forced to explain to an over-served client that he can not, in fact, compare my ass to his girlfriend’s while his hand is on it if he wants to keep it for his next competition.
Instead of feeling offended, I felt oddly seen and accepted that they trusted me enough to be the worst versions of themselves while they dealt with everything that comes with being the best in the world. I was always the only girl in a room full of boys and it benefited me greatly before the world changed and you could not only expect different treatment but demand it. Although there are countless elements of that time that I would gladly trade anything for in present day, I wouldn’t turn the clock back completely. Looking back on that young, single, female business owner, I am grateful that I was able to weather what now seems like cave-man times relatively unscathed. I frequently get asked about how I handled these antics, especially by other women, and I believe I have my dad and the men’s locker room at Willamette University to thank for it. He never told me I could do whatever the boys did or impart any other feminist ideals, he just never treated me any differently than them and so I never allowed anyone else to either. I found myself in relatively few situations where I felt uncomfortable and when I did, I knew how to handle them, and even more importantly, I knew how to move on when it was obvious it wasn’t going to end well. With these caveats in mind, let’s get to the list.
- DANNY WAY’S GREAT WALL OF CHINA JUMP
After a couple years as a junior publicist being paid barely more than nothing, I made the bold leap into opening my own “shop”. And by shop I mean a DBA and a computer in my living room. I had no college education and no idea what I was doing — I just knew I was good at it and took the leap of faith that I’d make enough money to pay rent and feed my kid. Danny Way changed all of that almost instantly, and he is like a brother to me to this day. His business manger somehow found me after I left my old job and asked me for a meeting. I wasn’t sure what I could do for a skateboarder, knowing nothing about skateboarding, until he showed me video of Danny’s 100 FT Mega Ramp and him jumping out of a helicopter on a skateboard. Danny was an elite athlete living in a small, very cool bubble that needed to be elevated to the mainstream, starting with what it would take to build a ramp over the Great Wall of China and launch him over it. I was down for all of it. After more coach class flights to China than I care to admit and lying to Leslie Gornstein at the LA Times about the Chinese government paying for her trip to our press conference in Beijing (sorry, Leslie) we got a two page Sunday LA Times Calendar section article and everyone suddenly knew we were legit jumping the Great Wall and we closed all the necessary funding to actually do it. Who fucking does that??
Danny being Danny of course injured himself on his 1.2 Million dollar construction project the day before the live televised event, and the drama was sky high-the only way he’ll ever have it. (I have a theory about the psychology of high level athletes subconsciously injuring themselves as an excuse if they fail and also as a challenge to be even bigger than themselves but that’s a different post.) He landed it on a slow news weekend and became the biggest sports star in the world for that news cycle. When we landed from China and I turned on my phone, my voicemail was full — every single major news organization in the US had contacted me and I felt like we both had made the greatest jumps of our lives. I make a lot of content now, and being involved with some of the guys making the coolest videos and filming the wildest stunts on the planet at the very beginning of my career and way before everyone had the type of access to it we have now has greatly improved my creativity and my eye for what’s going to catch an audience. I could probably link everything cool I’ve ever done in my career to working with Danny, and for that I’m super grateful.
2. ANNIE LEIBOVITZ PHOTOSHOPS SHAUN WHITE FOR VOGUE
People always ask who is the worst or most annoying celebrity I’ve ever worked with and without question that is Annie Leibovitz. I personally wouldn’t call her a celebrity, and I have spent time with people way more famous than her, but since she certainly considers herself one, it makes sense to award her this title.
Shaun came to me after my career was on full throttle and I was repping a high profile roster of incredibly hot brands, hotel properties, sports franchises, rock stars and billionaires. I loved the money and the strategy of brands, but individuals and especially athletes were always my favorite projects so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to work with him. He was too big for his family management team and also apparently tired of talking about Olympic snowboarding and red hair. Makes sense. So I came on to the team with very specific directives and was told that he “liked covers”. We put together outreach for skate only coverage and we landed some great shit. GQ Man of The Year, photographed by the absolutely amazing human Cass Bird, Rolling Stone, WSJ, NY Times, all eager to talk about his upcoming Summer X Games competition as a skater and all of them were cool about letting him take a break from the endless Olympic cycle. So when Vogue came along, we were on a roll and even though it wasn’t someone with any knowledge of the skating world, it was with one of the top models and biggest photographers in the world. What could go wrong? Turns out, pretty much everything. One of the many times I can look back and remind myself that I always have to listen to my gut. I’d recently removed Vanessa Gregoriadis from the Rolling Stone interview for a friendlier reporter who wasn’t known for hit pieces and was making myelf a name as a real bitch publicist for the first time with the media. When Annie’s assitant informed me on set that I was not only not allowed to speak to her, I was not allowed to LOOK at her or have access to Shaun when she was shooting, all my red flags went off. I should have pulled him right then but didn’t want to piss off Vogue. Big mistake.
Next up, we see that Annie’s production crew had decided to build a skate ramp on the beach. When we saw it, it was almost comical if it didn’t look so dangerous. Normally, nobody but Shaun’s personal ramp builder is ever allowed to construct something he’d set wheels on but Shaun is a superstar and a really good guy so he attempted it anyway, even managing to get some air and land some tricks. It was tall and narrow and I think made entirely of slivers. You’d have to bend the laws of physics to skate it. If it wasn’t my job to make sure this shit didn’t happen, I’d have died laughing at just the sight of him trying. So Shaun says to Annie, we have to talk, and he motions me to join him on the ramp-at which time I was immediately reminded I was not allowed to speak to her or be present for any creative discussions. Shaun is a pro at this and has been since he was a kid so he shrugged if off and walked over to me after to let me know he’d told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was not allowed to photoshop him skating that ramp and she emphatically agreed she would never, as a world famous photographer, ever do something like that.
You have to understand, Shaun wasn’t fully embraced by his peers in skateboarding yet. He was, in their eyes, too successful and a sell-out (it was a crime in skateboarding at that time to make too much money unless you were Tony Hawk) and being photoshopped skating some randomly placed trick would make him the laughingstock of his fellow skaters. The photo above is clearly photoshopped as it would be impossible for him to make that move and be in that positon. Thanks to Annie Leibovitz not being able to get over herself AND being a liar, I got fired over this one and rightfully so. Always listen to your gut, folks.
3. TRAVIS BARKER AND FAMOU$
You might be wondering what Travis is doing on a list about the world’s top athletes but I’d argue that as one of the greatest drummers in rock music, he’s just as athletic and just as much at the top of his game, not to mention his brand FAMOU$ was a huge deal in skate and motocross. Travis also had a very hot wife, Shanna Moakler, in more ways than one. I’m not sure what it takes to keep a sexy, rockstar husband in line having never had one, but Shanna could teach a master class and she could call it “Its better to be feared than liked”. I can’t say if I would have ever liked her had I gotten the chance to know her, because that never happened, but I can say I was afraid of her, and for good reason. Given this Perez Hilton picture and the caption he ran, I’m pretty sure she had a good reason to hate me, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with it. She also flooded the comments with people saying I looked like Janice Dickinson, so — well played, queen. I managed to get a very dear friend and super amazing human being named Jen Garcia who was at US Weekly at the time to run this photo with the correct caption that I was his publicist and absolutely nothing untoward was going on, but the damage was done. People have this idea that publicists are these master manipulators and can wield massive power, but this simply isn’t true, at least not for me. I hated Perez Hilton’s blog — it was mean, and I never placed anything there, not that he cared what I thought anyway, but this was a time in media when a celebrity couldn’t control their image the way they can now and these vultures thrived on the clicks of people’s personal lives.
I’ve been woken up with an urgent PR call at 5 AM exactly two times in my career, and both of them belong to Travis Barker, and by the same news outlet each time. The first one was for this photo, when my buddy Chris at CBS Early Morning Show was reading the New York Times one morning and saw an aritcle on a new blogger named Perez Hilton. Curious, he logged on to the site only to see this post as page one, front and center. He genuinely was excited to see me on there and wasn’t aware I was repping Trav but also asked, ‘What do you think his wife is going to think about this? Probabaly not good, hu?’ Probably not, Chris.
The second time was the same producer from CBS only it was with the devestating news that Travis had just survived a plane crash that killed one of the kindest, most loving, full-on people I’ve ever know, Travis’s assistant, Lil Chris, who was actually cut out of the afore mentioned Perez Hilton photo of us to make it look more salacious. (I work from the beach, remember?) Chris was ever present with Travis, they were never apart when we worked together and I loved him dearly. From the hospital as he was recovering, I got an email from Travis’s email account. Fittingly, it said “If I so much as see a flower or a card from you in this hospital, I will kill you, and don’t even think about stepping foot in here,” and it was from Shanna. Noted, girl, and godspeed, not going to argue this one. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been fired by someone’s wife and it wasn’t the last, it has happened three times in total, to be exact. Part of why I loved Receivers so much was seeing all the amazing relationships these athletes have to their wives and family, that’s a tough balance in professional sports or with any level of fame or money. Sometimes being the “only” woman in the locker room leads to false accusations of being the “other” woman in the bedroom. It sucked, but in these types of situations it is a lot easier to take the high road when you haven’t planted any landmines on it for yourself. I place a high value on family and relationships, and I can always get another client. Sometimes the media works for you, sometimes it doesn’t.
4. RED CARPET: UFC 02 ARENA LONDON
My entire career has fallen into two categories, clients or businesses I set out to work with and relentlessly pursued or jobs that were created for me because I met someone who decided they wanted my special brand of whatever it is I do to be a part of their business. The UFC is the former. I had been working with the Maloofs and Michael Morton with the NI9NE Group, opening their new towers and event spaces plus handling their VIP celebrity guests so I was spending a lot of time in Vegas. It was inevitable that I ended up attending a UFC fight and when someone offered me ring side tickets, I decided to go even though I knew nothing about the sport or really had any interest. The experience was so electrifying that I had to see what, if anything, they’d let me do for them. I tried a million ways to get to them, I even got Shaun White to agree to meet me on Dana White’s jet for a ride to Las Vegas and to attend an event that was important to Dana and then he never showed. Just me and Dana sitting on the tarmac with his buddy and an air hostess. He and I never really got off on the right foot but on this occasion at least I got a really gorgeous glass of Opus One while we waited. Air UFC is a thing of beauty, all three of them.
Then, mirculously, one of my colleagues from Burton ended up landing the CMO job at their organization and he gave me a shot at a one-off party for their LA fight. I was convinced with all the expensive tickets, the world-wide venues and the celebrity attendance, they needed to step up their celebrity PR, not just for their athletes but for their live events and that this was my way in. We threw a blowout party at The Chateau in Bungalow number one that even impressed Mrs. Fertitta, the owner’s wife and a very tough sell. Her approval was tantamount to me closing this deal and luckily for me she actually enjoyed herself. After a few more successful events that even surprised me with the turn outs, they gave me a chance to do a red carpet, international event at the 02 arena in London. I was to do an event the night before for VIPs and an actual carpet with a branded step-and-repeat at the arena— the only catch was they gave me exactly 10 days notice. Be careful what you wish for. I was coming off a less-than-stellar turnout at the NYC event I did for them and a lot was riding on this for our future working relationship. I managed to pull off a spectacular event the night before with some help from friends who knew people in London and I even got the stamp of approval from Dana White, which had become my windmill. I felt like he was finally past the awkward plane incident and I was dying for him to like me. He introduced me to their agent, Ari Emanuelle, who was then and continues to be, the most powerful guy in Hollywood. He lets Ari know we’re trying a branded red carpet for the first time and to make sure to bring Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law to the carpet to see me tomorrow before the event. I was thrilled and convinced this was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me and the UFC’s global image as a luxury brand. The DJ at our party was Madonna’s ex boyfriend and one of the hottest club DJ’s in London, Jesus Luz, and as part of his fee, he was getting two main floor seats to the fight the next night…
So, of course as a publicist, I can’t resist setting up the above headline. The red carpet was for about two hours, what’s the likelihood that they’d both arrive at exactly the same time? Well, they did. And Guy Ritchie was not having it. In fact, he took one look at him and blew past my red carpet with Ari and all his Sherlock Holmes stars going with him. I was left with 6 wire photographers who’d been promised the A-list cast and they immediately started packing up when they didn’t get the shot. No shots means no press, no press, no paycheck. I panicked and offered them to come down to the front row of the fight and take a shot of them in the audience, so much better right? They agreed! Only now I had to get 6 wire photographers in and out of massive arena during a live televised event without their flashes or their presence showing up on the broadcast. Adrenaline combined with caffeine and jet lag propelled me down to the front of the arena for approval of this plan from one of the only people capable of making that call-Lorenzo Fertita, owner of Station’s Casino chain and the UFC. He was standing next to my new acquaintance, Ari Emannulle-who as of the night before actually liked me. This is about to immediately change. For some reason, I was channelling an episode of Entourage and yelled, out of breath from the trek, at Ari, “You FU*ked me, Ari!”. I then turned to a flabbergasted Mr. Fertitta and said “I have 6 wire photographers and he promised they’d pose for a picture on our red carpet and they’re going to leave unless I individually bring them down here to get the shot!” wildly gesturing at the equally flabbergasted Richie, Downey, and Law seated behind us and staring at me, albeit much more amused than either Ari or Lorenzo. Speechless, Lorenzo merely gestures to Ari who mutters something like I don’t care, essentially giving me permission to do this but at the same time totally confused by my outrageous antics and still trying to process my statement. As you can see from the photo, I got the shots-and they did go everywhere and I did deliver what I promised, but I never fully recovered from being the crazy chick. I’m still amazed I continued working for them after this, but only when Dana wasn’t around, he was furious and screamed “are you happy??!! at me at the end of the fight. I was, acutally, because I had begged them to do this and I knew it was going to hit globally and working for them paid so well it made it possible for my kid to go to school in Malibu with a special class for her learning disability that was one of the best in Southern California. I learned a lot of lessons here and still think about how I could have handled it differently, although in all fairness, this type of behavior was mild compared to what happened with them on a daily basis. They were always kind of waiting for me to shoot my mouth off and they got a big kick out of seeing if they could get me to blow up. I used to joke if I ever ran into Ari and he put it together, he’d either hire me on the spot for that kind of outrageous commitment or blackball me from Hollywood forever. Most likely, he wouldn’t even remember, but I’ll never forget the feeling of pulling it off, even though it only mattered to me.
5. MALOOF MONEY CUP
Sometimes things come along that you know are going to be a dumpster fire but there’s so many cool people involved that you do it for the story. Maloof Money Cup was that gig for me. I signed on to launch a brand new, live, televised, skate competition that wanted to take on X games for the whopping sum of seventeen thousand dollars because Rob Dyrdek told the Maloofs there was only one person who could do it, me. Wait, what?? That is absolute crap money for anything especially when you’re working for a family that owns an NBA team AND a casino. They told me to trust them, and I did. And I did come home from Vegas with “bonuses” straight from the craps table at the Palms, so I guess it worked out ok.
Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong here, did. They had a guy who runs their basketball camps in charge of this thing and putting it the nicest way possible, we didn’t speak the same language. In all fairness, I think he took it way more seriously than I did. I could never really see how this thing was going to be profitable or compete with X Games, and it didn’t do any of those things, so I was mostly there to make sure it went ok and nobody punched anyone, not launch a global brand. Skaters are such a unique breed and once they think you’re corny, it is over for you. Skaters can make anything cool but the reverse is really hard to come back from. I was once very creatively insulted by one of the letters in one of the largest PR firms in the world, BNC, when he told me he couldn’t understand how clients were turning them down to work with me when it appeared I had only sensibilities rather than any real capabilities. That was a very pompous way of saying clients were hiring me because I was cool, not because I knew what I was doing. This guy running the MM Cup, he had neither. What did end up going well, was because of the skaters love for the Maloofs and my team and I handling the rest. We spent most of our time smoothing things over between the suits and the skaters and making sure people knew who to take photos of-mainstream media mostly didn’t know anything about skateboarding and Las Vegas media knew nothing. Luckily for all of us, it acutally worked out and was a fun couple of days. I remember Joe Maloof looking at me at 5 Am before live local news standups the day of the event and saying how nice it was to work with someone in PR that wasn’t treating everything like brain surgery. I was like, Joe, this is skateboarding and its 5 AM, your core audience for this won’t be awake for another seven hours-say whatever the F you want, just try and get people to show up.
I did manage to stay on board for the second year but the suit had also managed to drastically reduce my role and brought in some OC PR firm that none of the skaters knew or would pay attention to. Rob Dyrdek dropped out completely and ended up starting his own skate competition and the Maloofs went back to focusing on gambling and basketball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you’re in the stands enjoying the show.
I’m sure there’s at least ten more of these I could write, but this brought me back enough for now. So as promised, Dolly Parton with a football. Go Bearcats!
