Letter to L.A. Times

This letter was sent to the L.A. Times, not by me, but it was shared with me and the writer asked me to repost it and tag the British Vogue.

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I started following the story of Alexandra Grant as the alleged girlfriend of a Hollywood celebrity solely as a news story. An intelligent person can piece together the tale of a scam unfolding via the blaring inconsistencies between what Grant states in her PR pieces run predominantly in various tabloids and what can be seen in the paparrazi photos Grant commissions to be taken in support of her narrative. One of the first mentions of Grant as this celebrity's supposed girlfriend in the news media was in a Forbes.com article that marked the launch of Grant's blitzkrieg style fake romance PR offensive. It was published just three days after the "couple" attended the LACMA 2019 Art and Film Gala together. This is a new type of scam, and in Forbes' defense, they had no way of knowing at the time that what Grant was selling in her paid for PR piece was a lie and that she was fabricating a romance out of thin air. Forbes has since seemed to step back it's original version of the article when I went back to look at it a second time so that it sounds less like it was written by a fawning sycophant and more like a standard PR piece. It appears to me that Forbes probably recognized that Grant crossed the line from embellishment well into the territory of fake news. What was supposed to be a paid for promotion instead gave voice to a con artist who is attempting to exploit her association with a Hollywood celebrity to catapult herself to unearned fame and fortune.

You might ask why is the person falsely being labeled as her boyfriend not refuting the claims himself? The standard PR protocol of not dignifying relationship rumors with a response. Presumably you live in LA, and if so, you know the drill. Some celebs adhere to this policy much more strictly than others. It's just a matter of how strictly they guard their privacy, which makes this entire scam all the more offensive. It exploits the celeb's willingness to remain mum as a means of guarding their privacy. This PR protocol doesn't take into account the possibility of a continuous fictitious narrative coming out of an opposing PR camp. I also believe his PR team miscalculated the willingness of all outlets of the news media to regurgitate what is written in a paid for promo piece as fact without making any effort to independently verify this information. One misstatement of facts in a paid for PR article and a story can become self-perpetuating.

All of the mentions of this "couple" aside from Forbes were in tabloids with the exception of media coverage given last week to a GOOP event. The GOOP promotion of Grant at that event was purely out of self-interest, as GOOP is sponsoring the upcoming Marfa Invitational Contemporary Art Fair. Because of Grant's scam she now has more name recognition than any of the other artists attending, which makes it particularly beneficial for GOOP to promote her.

If you were to print a retraction of the L.A. Times PR piece done on Grant last week it will expose Grant and help put a stop to this charade. This is your opportunity to right your shortcoming. Here in LA LA Land it will not go unnoticed. Taking this initiative will mean something to us citizens of the U.S. of A. who value truth in the press although our faith in it is waning. This is a new breed of scam and the advent of social media serves to facilitate it's execution. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go with Gwyneth on this one. Grant definitely appears to be a "brilliant, expansive, talented thinker".

The intentional misstatement of a relationship status may seem trivial to some, but L.A. as you well know is flooded with celebrities who value their privacy and have to fight hard to maintain it. Being forced to continually comment on their relationship status will only make it all the more difficult. Let these celebs know that you have their backs. What I am asking you to do, to print a retraction on a fluff PR piece, is unheard of. I am aware of this. It takes a whole lot more balls to print a retraction on a story in the news biz than it does to break a story of any kind. My question to you is have you got the balls?