Issue 2.
Victoria Beckham Super Bowl, Net-a-Porter Founder’s $145 Million Breakup, Nepo Baby Boom & More
Victoria Beckham Super Bowl
Netflix has announced the release date of what will be one of the defining events of our generation: Victoria Beckham, the documentary.
This is my Super Bowl. My Christmas morning. My wedding day. The birth of my future child. Their graduation. Their wedding. My retirement.
Stay tuned.
Nepo Baby Boom
Welcome to a golden age of DNA. My week began with Robert Irwin’s Bonds-clad crotch looming over my morning walk, before a mindless scroll delivered Patrick Schwarzenegger’s wedding — which could double as a hens, given the volume of cowboy hats — Apple Martin’s Self Portrait ambassadorship, and Sunday Rose Kidman Urban (a person, not a law firm), dangerously close to a fashion runway. Somewhere in there, eight-year-old Dream Kardashian made her NYFW debut.
But the nepotism boom goes beyond catwalks and clickbait. Last week, Lachlan Murdoch cemented his place as the chosen son, buying out his siblings to secure his father’s media empire and another quarter-century of the family’s grip on the global news cycle.
So the question isn’t if nepo babies inherit the world, but what they’ll do with it. Should we start pre-production on With Love, Lillibet?
Sheenanigans
Celebrity documentaries are as ubiquitous as skincare brands, surely an eight-part Eddie McGuire series can’t be far off, but aka Charlie Sheen had me salivating for more.
The two-part Netflix series is an endearing, unintentionally hilarious (the dealer needs his own show) and, at times, touching look at the actor’s rise to fame and well-documented battle with drugs. Denise Richards and Sean Penn are memorable, but the real star is the man behind the headlines, showing heart, vulnerability, and a good sense of humour.
The series is also a sad reminder of how sanitised celebrity culture has become, and how today’s stars live behind carefully curated public images, afraid to slip up, go viral, be cancelled, or, God forbid, offend anyone.
All the Cool Girls Get Fired
Take a bow, Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill. There’s nothing cooler than owning a bad situation with humour and honesty. The former InStyle and WSJ. Magazine editors are behind one of the most refreshing self-help titles in years: All The Cool Girls Get Fired: How to Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Back on Top. Equal parts memoir and self-help, the book draws on their experiences of being made redundant from their high-profile roles in 2023.
FRAUD-AND-DISORDER
If you need a case study in why mixing business with pleasure is a bad idea, look no further than NET-A-PORTER founder Natalie Massenet and Erik Torstensson, co-founder of FRAME.
This saga has everything: a public bust-up, million-dollar debt, A-list friends, elite business circles, beautiful homes, drug use, sex addiction, herpes medication, a Kardashian brand, and duelling lawsuits. You’d be forgiven for mistaking it as the plot of a 2pm drama on 7mate.
In mid-August, Massenet filed a lawsuit against her former partner for “fraud, breach of contract and emotional distress.” The woman who brought luxury fashion online accused Torstensson of engaging with prostitutes, affairs with younger women, drug use, social climbing, and an addiction to a jet-set lifestyle, all allegedly funded by her.
A self-described “liar, drug addict, alcoholic, and sex addict,” Torstensson is accused of using Massenet’s “fame and fortune to leverage his public standing, reputation, and finances.”
In return for funding a lifestyle that included private planes, New York townhouses, a Cotswolds estate, and access to her Rolodex of friends and business contacts, Torstensson allegedly promised to share future returns from his business ventures. When he failed to deliver, she claims to now be “cash strapped” and is seeking A$145 million (USD $95m) from the man she once called her “best investment.”
We’ll forgive Natalie for her take on being cash-strapped, because the court filings (per Puck) are a masterclass in passive-aggressive one-liners:
“Torstensson lived in a one-bedroom apartment without even so much as a bed frame.”
“While Torstensson’s finances were stretched, he contributed where he could, such as when they dined out.”
“He was looking to leech off of Massenet’s success, like a moth to a flame.”
Earlier this month, Torstensson filed a countersuit, accusing 60-year-old Massenet of being an unfit mother and seeking custody of their eight-year-old son. Per The New York Times:
“He is painting her as a partying narcissist; she is depicting him as an amoral grifter.”
His claims also accuse her of heavy drug and alcohol use, and of occasionally turning violent when intoxicated.
Where to start?! Public mud-slinging, humiliating private revelations and character assassinations so vicious they make Phoebe and Sam Burgess’ divorce drama look like a morning breakfast show.
Then there are the potential business implications. Massenet co-founded Imaginary Ventures, a VC fund with stakes in SKIMS, Glossier, and Reformation. Hardly the kind of scandal that reassures founders or investors. And of course, there’s their son, the true victim in this mess, caught in the smoke and mirrors of the 1%.
I keep coming back to a Wall Street Journal feature from 2022 on the couple’s Cotswolds estate renovation. One of those glossy, over-styled, obnoxious puff pieces that makes you feel poor just reading it. I still want their half-moon Miranda Brookes swimming pool and mudroom lined with Hunter boots, but now it reads like the written equivalent of a couple who share their every move online before suddenly splitting and erasing all traces of each other.
“Rarely a night goes by when we are not brainstorming new ideas, re-imagining businesses and visualising a better-branded world,” Massenet told The Times in 2021. “But perhaps, in one way, our greatest success has been our modern family and the way we all see the world, and the dreams we are building together.”
Excellenteeee!!!
Great read 💙