Reality Matters_ 19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching - Anna David [69]
Neil Strauss is the author of six New York Times best-selling books, including Emergency, The Game, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt, and Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.
Stacey Grenrock Woods has written for numerous magazines and was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for several years. She currently writes a monthly column for Esquire. Her first book, a memoir titled I, California, was published by Scribner in 2007. She lives in Los Angeles.
Toby Young is a British journalist and the author of the international best seller How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2001) and The Sound of No Hands Clapping (2006). Young moved to New York in 1995 to work for Vanity Fair, where he was a contributing editor from 1995 to 1998. He is an associate editor of The Spectator and a restaurant critic for The Independent on Sunday. He has performed in the West End in a stage adaptation of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and, in 2005, co-wrote (with fellow Spectator journalist Lloyd Evans) a sex farce called Who’s the Daddy? It was named Best New Comedy at the 2006 Theatregoers’ Choice Awards. He has appeared on numerous reality shows, most recently, as a regular judge on Top Chef. He co-produced the film version of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, which starred Kirsten Dunst and Simon Pegg, and most recently co-wrote and co-produced a dramadoc called When Boris Met Dave. He lives in West London with his wife and four children.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would be just one essay if I hadn’t had eighteen fantastic contributors who brought more wit, originality, and intelligence to this rarely defended form of entertainment than I’d ever anticipated people could. So thank you James, Stacey, Mel, Neal, Jancee, Toby, Richard, Jerry, Amelie, Ben, Austin, John, Helaine, Will, Wendy, Mark, Rex, and Neil for transforming an idea into a book I love.
I’m also grateful to Carrie Kania and Cal Morgan for overseeing the project and Pilar Queen for making the deal. And thank you Bunim/Murray, Magical Elves, Endemol, Fremantle, Mike Fleiss, Adam DiVello, Dr. Drew Pinsky, and the many other producers who give we reality television fans—the mighty, the proud—so much to write about, obsess over, hate, and love.
About the Editor
ANNA DAVID, author of Party Girl and Bought, has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Playboy, and Details, among other notable publications. She’s a regular guest on Fox News’s Red Eye and has repeatedly appeared on Today, Hannity, and CNN’s Showbiz Tonight, as well as on numerous other programs on NBC, CBS, MTV, E!, and VH1. She lives in New York.
www.annadavid.com
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BOUGHT
PARTY GIRL
Credits
Cover photograph © Vartanov Anatoly/Shutterstock
HDTV image © Vartanov/Shutterstock
Copyright
REALITY MATTERS. Compilation copyright © 2010 by Anna David. Foreword copyright © 2010 by James Frey. “Poverty in the Time of The Real Housewives of New York City” copyright © 2010 by Stacey Grenrock Woods. “Faketastic” copyright © 2010 by Melissa De La Cruz. “Billie Jeanne Is Not My Lover” copyright © 2010 by Neal Pollack. “The Cutting Crew” copyright © 2010 by Jancee Dunn. “Show Boat” copyright © 2010 by Toby Young. “The Biting Hand” copyright © 2010 by Will Leitch. “Honest, Honey, I’m Not Gay, I Just Like Watching Half-Naked Buff Guys with Full-Body Ink” copyright © 2010 by Jerry Stahl. “Becoming a Lady” copyright © 2010 by Amelie Gillette. “Shelly” copyright © 2010 by Ben Mandelker. “Joining The Real World” copyright © 2010 by Anna David. “Gameboy” copyright © 2010 by Austin Bunn. “The After Party” copyright © 2010 by John Albert. “I Dream of Stacy” copyright © 2010 by Helaine Olen. “Idolatry