Hollywood Obsessed With Gwyneth Paltrow's Bad House Guest Star

I had dinner with an old friend on Wednesday at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles, the kind of miraculous moment when no one stares at their phone for hours. Afterward, on my way to valet, I crossed the hotel’s stone bridge and admired the elegant swans that live in a small pond below.

By the time I was strapped into the car, my text messages had exploded with conversations about Derek Blasberg — a professional best friend of celebrities who has demonstrated remarkable staying power within elite circles around the world, holding down odd jobs in and around the entertainment and media worlds along the way.

As you have probably heard, it has been “revealed” by a media report like the notable visitor who fled Gwyneth Paltrow’s Amagansett home in the Hamptons a few weeks ago. Blasberg reportedly disappeared from the Oscar-winning actress’s home after an indecent incident at her guest house, involving an intense bowel movement that destroyed the place. Wednesday’s article naming Blasberg as the explosive guest was preceded by a blindside story in the Daily Mail and, before that, a similar story on the Instagram gossip account Deux Moi.

Variety I heard the same thing about Blasberg in mid-June, though some suggested it happened at Paltrow’s Montecito estate as the story spread gleefully across New York. Over the years, Blasberg has been a correspondent for Vogue, a former head of YouTube’s fashion section, and a former CNN correspondent who, in a delightful twist, wrote a book on manners called “Classy.”

Like the royal creatures of the Bel Air lagoon, Paltrow is Hollywood's quintessential swan. A veteran who sits at the intersection of art, entrepreneurship, fashion, show business and social spheres on both coasts. To put it bluntly: if was Blasberg in Gwyneth's guesthouse, my god he shit in the wrong bed.

The story has been a huge success in Hollywood circles for a number of reasons. You could say it’s a slow news cycle thanks to Independence Day, or a welcome distraction from the state of American politics. There’s also a kind of devilish excitement in hearing about a vile act of humanity in a world so privileged, so organized, so inaccessible. But the most important message in all this jumble is a sense of biblical justice for Blasberg, a character whose profile, some observers say, is little more than a smokescreen in a city that demands proof of worth.

Blasberg’s ability to attract the rich and beautiful has baffled for years, as his 1.6 million Instagram followers attest. He’s been bedded in monogrammed pajamas by Jessica Seinfeld, gotten at-home facials in Barry Diller’s home and photographed Anne Hathaway playing with her kids in her nursery. And, of course, he’s proven himself to be an uber-Zelig: a face who appears on the world’s runways, at the annual Met Gala and at the hardest-to-pull-apart Oscars without many people knowing him or his importance there.

The Daily Mail's blind piece on Paltrow's incontinent guest called the culprit a “celebrity” (and, for what it's worth, attributed the problem to irritable bowel syndrome as a side effect of Ozempic. This reporter heard the same thing, except it was the diabetes drug's mix with NyQuil that led to the destruction). In a later article singling out Blasberg, he was downgraded to “socialite and celebrity.”

One Hollywood salesman wondered: “How could he create this cult of personality while offering virtually nothing to the general public?”

Paltrow herself had reservations about letting him in.

“When I first met him, I was a little skeptical. I was like, ‘Are you a celebrity’s professional best friend? And why are you everywhere? What’s your problem?’” she told The Cut in 2016. “Within 10 seconds, I was completely in love with him.”

Several reports have indicated that the story was leaked as a warning to Blasberg’s other celebrity friends, including Seinfeld and Oprah Winfrey, a cautionary tale about the consequences that high-quality linens and pristine ceilings could suffer if you let in those lower on the social ladder. Others are empathetic and regret that Blasberg has to make headlines. The Paltrow guesthouse incident is already well-known listed in Blasberg's biography on his Wikipedia page.

Blasberg and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment for this story. It’s also unclear what projects he has left. The U.S. Open, Labor Day in the Hamptons and Montecito, and the start of the fall film festival season can be treacherous territory for someone who lives and dies in polite society (though we’ve heard he’s currently on a mogul’s boat for the Fourth of July).

Designer Tom Ford once called Blasberg the next Truman Capote. Someone who also learned the hard way what it costs to get rid of a swan.