Going Off Script

by Giuliana Rancic

  “You know what? Ask me whatever you want. I think this is a really good platform to get an important message out to a lot of young women.” The difference was like night and day. She opened up and talked all about cutting herself, bulimia, depression. The interview was amazing and got picked up all over the world.

  Motherhood didn’t just make me mush, though: it made me fiercer than I’ve ever been, too. When I got caught in the social media war between LeAnn Rimes and her new husband’s ex, Brandi Glanville, shit got real.

  It started back in the summer of 2011, when Bill and I were opening our first restaurant, RPM Italian, in Chicago. A reporter asked me which celebrity I would most love to feed at RPM, and I said LeAnn, because she looked a little thin, what with all the stress in her life. She and Eddie Cibrian had carried on a very public adulterous affair before divorcing their respective spouses and getting married a couple of months earlier. LeAnn fired back at me on Twitter, and Brandi chalked me up as being on Team Brandi. LeAnn’s representative left a message one day with the singer’s number, saying she’d like me to text or call her. I ended up texting her. “We should get together,” she answered back. “This is so crazy!” We met for drinks and ended up talking about how people love to tear others apart over their weight. Too skinny or too fat—it doesn’t matter which. Body size is a hot-button topic in our society, and people in the public eye, especially, are considered fair game to attack.

  I ended up interviewing LeAnn for Beyond Candid. She broke down in tears when talking about her affair with Eddie and the firestorm of public criticism that followed, saying she had never known such pain, nor had she meant to cause any. I found myself not as quick to disapprove of her behavior as I had been. I mentioned this on an episode of Fashion Police when we were discussing LeAnn frolicking in a bikini on a beach with Eddie, and her home-wrecker reputation came up again.

  “I used to totally poo-poo this relationship, then I watched his ex-wife on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She is batshit crazy!”

  Next thing I heard, Brandi was tweeting away about me. “Hopefully her man doesn’t leave her and give her surrogate baby to a bonus wife,” she wrote.

  Surrogate baby? Not only was I personally offended, but I was offended on behalf of all the other women who had to rely on surrogacy to have a child and saw it as a gift, not something to be ashamed of or held up for public ridicule. I did exactly what I knew full well would make crazy Brandi even crazier: I didn’t respond, even though she was trying and trying to get me to react. Respond to a D-lister, and you become a D-lister. Brandi’s celebrity exists largely within her own twittersphere, and is based almost entirely on her feuds with LeAnn or fellow Housewives. I had no intention of entering her unhappy little world, but months later, I was on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, and he read this tweet out of nowhere from a viewer wondering if I had cleared things up with Brandi.

  “If she ever mentions my baby again, I’ll cut her,” I said without hesitation.

  —

  Having a child puts the future of our own reality show into question. Neither Bill nor I want to raise an attention-seeking brat, and Duke deserves his own life without the public scrutiny that Mommy and Daddy signed up for. Besides, we ask ourselves all the time, what more do we have that anyone would want to watch? We’ve already shared so much. And the one hard-and-fast rule we have about our reality show is that it remain real.

  Authentic is one of those words people like to throw around a lot, but after you’ve spent a decade or two in Hollywood, you genuinely appreciate it on the rare occasion that you see it. After thousands of celebrity interviews, party chats, and red carpet drive-bys over the years, my admiration for the stars who are genuine grows deeper by the day, especially when I’ve had the opportunity to watch them evolve over the years. Some, like Dakota and Elle Fanning, I first met as child stars, and now they’re beautiful young women every bit as sweet and unspoiled as they were back when a seven-year-old Dakota invited me to color with her. I wish I could bottle what they have and spritz it on some emerging young celebrities. Ariana Grande has made several headlines for her reported junior diva moves. I got my own dose of the twenty-one-year-old newcomer when I was on the red carpet for the Grammy Awards and was told by producers that Ariana was on her way to my position for an interview. I always stand on the same side at every red carpet event, and a big red X is placed on the spot next to me so the celebrity knows exactly where to stand. Suddenly, Ariana and her team came flying over to me, and the next thing I knew, she had jumped into my spot. When my floor director told the publicist to please have Ariana move over and stand on the X, the publicist angrily issued an ultimatum: Either she stands where she is, or she doesn’t do the interview.

  I was flabbergasted by the exchange, and shot Ariana a conspiratorial look as if to say “How crazy is this?” She feigned ignorance, looked at me with those Bambi eyes, smiled, and didn’t budge. I was about to say, “Fine. Then we are pulling the interview, screw you!” but everything was happening so quickly, and the next thing I knew, the red light was on, we were live in more than one hundred countries, and Ariana had successfully planted herself with her preferred left side facing the camera. (Which, BTW, would be the side I fought for thirteen years to get. Earn your stripes, girl.) If Mariah Carey wants to shove me off the platform, I’ll take the face-plant and gladly interview her from the floor.

  Authentic doesn’t mean perfect: Probably my worst interview ever was with the late Gary Coleman, the four-foot-eight actor best known for his childhood role as Arnold on the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which I had loved as a kid. In 2003, Coleman, then thirty-five, tossed his hat in the ring to run for governor of California in a recall election that Arnold Schwarzenegger ended up winning. But Gary, may he rest in peace, was kinda out of his fucking mind. He was seriously committed to winning, even though his candidacy had been sponsored as a satirical gesture by an alternative weekly newspaper in Oakland and his platform pretty much amounted to “why not me?” When we sat down for our one-on-one, I immediately asked if he really thought he could win:

  “Yes, I do,” he said.

  Hate me if you must, but I couldn’t resist, and responded with a not-bad imitation of his famous catchphrase from Diff’rent Strokes:

  “What’chu talkin’ ’bout, Gary?”

  I thought he might roll his eyes, at the most. Obviously he’d heard the same cheesy joke fourteen jillion times over the years. But I guess mine was the tipping point.

  “Oh, man! Really? That’s it!” Gary ripped off his microphone and stormed off.

  “I was kidding!” I called after him. “That was a joke! Sit down!”

  “No!” Gary pouted.

  “Are you serious right now?” I asked. This had to be a great act, joke on me. Gary was glowering.

  “Do I look serious?” he said. End of interview.

  His tantrum was egomaniacal, unprofessional, and 110 percent stupid, but I grudgingly had to give him some props. Gary’s political ambitions may have been dubious, but he let his true self show that day, and in the end, I had to salute his crazy flag.

  Angelina Jolie is one star whose authenticity I find inspirational. Keep in mind, she was my first major celeb interview from my short-lived starter job at LOAD, so I’ve watched her evolve from wild child to UN goodwill ambassador, mother, wife, and now director and producer. Interviewing her for the Christmas 2014 release of Unbroken, her second movie behind the camera as producer and director, I could see that Angelina had changed yet again. There was a difference in her eyes, a soulfulness I had never felt before from her. This woman who could have any—literally, any—movie role she wanted in the world, chose instead to follow her own heart instead of public and industry expectations, and stepped off the big screen.

  Sitting across from her, no longer an ingénue but a woman just shy of forty, I had never seen Angelina look so beautiful. She radiated a sense of joy and accomplishment that no makeup, lighting, or camera
angle could ever create. I envied her courage to reach beyond people’s expectations of her and take charge not of a single role, but of the whole epic story of one prisoner of war’s incredible survival. When you’ve spent so much time in front of the camera, being taken seriously when you step behind it is a challenge, far more so for actresses than actors.

  Whenever I hint at my own hopes of expanding my producer role, the three Fs—my friends, family, and fans—shoot the idea down. Why wouldn’t I want to be on TV? Was I being forced off? Was I secretly being fired for someone younger? To which I have three responses:

  1. Because I’ve done it so long, I know it so well, and I’m eager to apply all that experience to see some of my own ideas for shows through from inception to the TV screen.

  2. No, I have more contract extensions than hair extensions.

  3. Isn’t there more to life than reporting the “breaking news” that Jennifer Lawrence is single again?

  Which brings me to Joan.

  Joan would fly in from New York every Wednesday afternoon, then go to Melissa’s house to eat something, look at our binder full of pictures for that week’s Fashion Police show, and start writing jokes until she went to bed. She’d be up again at 3:30 in the morning and at E! an hour later, then in hair and makeup by 5:30. I would come in and see her sitting on the set by herself with the teleprompter girl, going over every line, making the tiniest adjustments until every word was perfect. This was a seventy-eight-year-old woman staying on top of pop culture. She had to know who Kesha was and why Justin Bieber was in the gossip columns again. She was the only grandmother on earth who knew the difference between Demi Lovato and Demi Moore. Joan always did her homework. We’d all go on set at 8:30 and roll the cameras at 9:00. We’d wrap at noon, and Joan would go straight to LAX for her flight back to New York. Sometimes she would land at JFK and get in a town car to drive to Philadelphia to do QVC, or jump on another plane to go on a book tour, or fly to London to do a stand-up show. Joan was on fire 24/7. She was unstoppable.

  I never once saw Joan yawn or say she was tired.

  About every fifth show, she’d have issues with her voice.

  “Joan, you have to get some rest,” I’d scold her.

  “Stop, I’m good!” she’d rasp. She had her tea and her lozenges, and she would soldier on. I remember venting to her when my father, at seventy-five, signed a ten-year lease to open a new tailor shop. “It’s ridiculous!” I complained.

  “No, it’s not,” Joan replied. “If you love what you do, why would you stop? He enjoys it. Just support it.”

  She would walk onto set with a huge basket full of mini chocolate bars to give to our small studio audience and spend fifteen minutes treating them to a one-woman show, even though we had a warm-up guy. She’d answer any question a fan wanted to ask. She couldn’t take a compliment. If I complimented her hair, she’d shrug it off and say it was extensions. Credit was always deflected to her glam squad or stylists for perfect makeup or a beautiful outfit. This went on for years. The very last time I saw her, just two days before she went in for routine throat surgery and never woke up, I remember Joan had her hair clipped back prettily on one side.

  “Joan, you look beautiful today,” George remarked. “Giuliana, doesn’t Joan look beautiful?”

  “Yeah, you really do. You look beautiful, Joan,” I agreed. I waited a few seconds for her self-deprecating reply, thinking to myself, here it comes!

  “Thank you,” she said and gave me a big, beautiful smile.

  That day, we were having this conversation on set about tragic deaths in Hollywood. We were talking about actor Paul Walker’s car crash the previous winter, and how sad and shocking his sudden death had been. Everyone was still reeling from Robin Williams’s suicide just the week before, followed the very next day by the death of screen legend Lauren Bacall.

  “We’re so lucky, knock wood,” Joan said. “We’re all so lucky. Never forget how lucky we are. We get to work with people we like. We genuinely love each other, not that fake Hollywood shit.” We agreed with her. We always did. It wasn’t ass-kissing. She was just right, and whenever we all had this sense of a shared vibe or feeling, Joan had this way of speaking up and giving voice to it. That sort of sixth sense is what made her such an amazing comedienne. She could, and would, say what everyone else was thinking.

  She finished her work in L.A, then went to New York as usual. That night, she did a book-signing event with a Q and A. The following night, it was an hour-long stand-up show. The next morning, she went in for her throat procedure. I was selling my clothing line live on HSN in Tampa. Lisa, our Fashion Police executive producer, kept calling and calling, but I didn’t have my phone on the air with me. As I was walking off the HSN set, one of the show handlers approached me.

  “Um, a couple of developments,” she stammered. “Joan Rivers is in a coma.”

  “What?” My knees gave out and I hit the floor. I saw all the missed calls on my phone, and knew it had to be true. I got through to Lisa but was too hysterical to talk.

  “Calm down! Giuliana, you need to calm down!” Lisa told me in her tough New York accent. “She’s in the hospital. Melissa is flying to New York with her son right now.”

  I dialed Melissa, frantic for news. She picked up and told me she was still en route.

  “Melissa, she has to be okay,” I cried.

  “We don’t know. We just don’t know,” she answered. She sounded stoic but stunned. I knew she was holding it together for her son. Melissa and Cooper were Joan’s life; the three of them were a tight little family. Joan would know they were there no matter how deep the coma, and she would fight like hell to stay with them, I told myself.

  I was a mess. I called George, and he was crying, too. Thus began what-the-fuck-is-going-on week. If that sounds irreverent, I promise you Joan would have approved.

  Suzanne had been E! president for two years, and her impending exit was widely rumored as the parent company underwent a management overhaul. As the star of one of her biggest hits clung to life, she was determined to own the story, and I ended up being treated like a “get” instead of an anchor, a coworker, and, most important, a friend of thirteen years to the woman our mutual boss was now badgering me to cover. I was surprised and hurt by how shockingly insensitive my bosses were being. I kept thinking I could reason with them. No, I wouldn’t do a special, or be interviewed for one. Joan was going to make it. I wanted to get to New York and be there for her. Melissa and I had been texting back and forth when Melissa had any updates, and she was determined to remain positive. “Praying,” I texted her, “love you.”

  “Keep praying,” she wrote back.

  Duke’s second birthday was August 29, the day after Joan went into cardiac arrest while undergoing the endoscopy at her doctor’s office. I had made plans with E! long before to shoot the news from Chicago so I could spend the special day with family. Bill and the baby were already there, and I needed to be with them now more than ever. The network wanted me back on our set in L.A. immediately, but I stood firm, and they finally relented.

  Then we got a glimmer of hopeful news: On Sunday, the doctors would know a lot more about Joan’s prognosis. They were going to start bringing her out of the medically induced coma to see if there was brain damage. Kelly, George, and I were still talking and crying together every day, and I was upset when they didn’t latch on to this new development with the same optimism I did. “Guys, keep praying. Keep visualizing her waking up,” I urged. I was on my knees praying for Joan every night before bed, and I convinced myself that Sunday was going to bring us the miracle we all wanted so badly.

  On Sunday, E! called and told me I had to be on set in L.A. the next day.

  “That doesn’t make sense!” I protested. “I’m an hour from New York, where Joan is. I should report from there.”

  “No,” I was told. “There may not be a good outcome and if she gets worse, we want our main anchor in L.A. fronting the story. We want you on set in
L.A.” They wanted the gravitas our big, glossy set would convey.

  I dug in my heels again. “I have to go see Joan and Melissa,” I insisted.

  “This is how it’s going to work—” one of the executives started to argue.

  “No! This is how it’s going to work,” I yelled back. “I am going to New York. I’m not coming back to L.A. You can deal with your damn L.A. set and I will report from New York, where I am headed to see my friends Joan and Melissa!” Click.

  E! then appealed to my agent and manager to secretly have Bill convince me to go to L.A. Pam didn’t even bother—she knew Bill would never do that—and just told them he’d said no. The E! executives were getting nastier, she added.

  “Tell them they can fire me,” I said.

  “You know, they really can fire you,” Pam reminded me. “Technically you’re not performing your duties.”

  E! had another idea. It was Fashion Week in New York, and I had already been scheduled to go for months. I assumed they were pulling all coverage out of Fashion Week, but I was wrong. The network said they were still moving forward with shooting the two Fashion Police specials, obviously without Joan. My fingers couldn’t dial Kelly and George quickly enough. Thankfully, the three of us banded together. We weren’t doing Fashion Police without its star. The network ended up changing the name of the broadcast from Fashion Police to E! from Fashion Week and recasting it with the always camera-ready Kimora Simmons.

  After refusing to go to L.A., I went to New York to see Melissa and report for E! There were reports that Joan had been moved out of the ICU and was in stable condition.

  “Happy to hear things are looking up, even though there’s a long recovery,” I texted Melissa on my way. “Praying every day.”

  “Keep praying,” she texted back. “Please come by the hospital and say hi. I need it.” Her assistant later reached out and said Melissa wanted me to come by the hospital at nine that night. George was in town, so I called him. “They’re making me go to the Fashion Police Fashion Week party,” he told me miserably. I had refused to go and kept telling the producers how disrespectful it was not to cancel the party immediately. The network felt it was too late to call it off and maintained there was still hope Joan was going to come out of this.