Cindy Adams, Greatest Living Gossip Columnist, Didn't Choose Gossip, It Chose Her
I worked at the New York Post years ago but only knew legendary gossip columnist Cindy Adams by her byline photo—red lipstick, bouffant, oversized pearls. She was like the wizard behind the curtain, a columnist only referred to by her first name in the office, but who seemed not to even have a desk there.
I was all set to finally meet Adams in person—she invited me to talk about the new Showtime documentary Gossip at her apartment. It's one of those fancy buildings with gilded decor in the lobby. But when I arrived, I was told there was an emergency, that her air conditioner had broken, flooding her home. So we had to talk about the documentary, her four-decade career, and, of course, her even longer friendship with Trump, on the phone instead.
It’s too bad, because Adams’ famous penthouse Park Avenue apartment is wallpapered in hundreds of Post covers. Ninety-one-year-old Adams has been writing for the tabloid for more than four decades and she estimates her reporting graced more than 500 front pages—”the wood,” in tabloid-speak. In the documenary, Adams takes executive producer Jenny Carchman through her home, pointing out some of the most notable.
“Guiliani!” says Adams, her hair perfectly coiffed in her signature up-do. “He’s back in the news again!”
“Woody!” she says, pointing to an old cover with Woody Allen and Mia Farrow on the cover. “I had dinner with him two nights ago.”
While the series is about the gossip industry—including the Post’s long-running Page Six, which is run by a team of reporters—it’s mostly about Adams, the last well-known gossip columnist standing. Director and Producer Jenny Carchman, who also went inside the New York Times’ reporting on Donald Trump’s presidency for the docuseries The Fourth Estate, hoped for Gossip to be something of a prequel to that.
Adams has been reporting on Trump since long before he ran for office, and they've been friends for even longer. During the earliest days of Trump’s real estate career they were introduced at a dinner party thrown by Roy Cohn, who has been referred to, among other things, as “one of the 20th century’s most evil men.” Both figures showed up frequently in her reporting from the time. This is part of the legend of Cindy Adams: Adams’s daily newspaper column is filled with scoops drawn from her friendships—and the more controversial the better.
“One of my limited good points is intense loyalty. If somebody has been good to me, I will pay them back forever and ever,” Adams says. “But if you are evil to me, I’ll get you either in this life or the next one.”
Our conversation is lightly edited for length and clarity.
Esquire: Hi Cindy, how are you?
Adams: I'm good now. We've had sort of a hairy week. An air conditioner or something flooded, and I can't imagine how this happened.
I know you've seen the documentary, what do you think of it?
I like a good portion of it. We had a problem. Because of the pandemic, they could not get me doing anything. They couldn't get me doing a red carpet, going backstage, an interview, a gala, anything. So they had to put in old movies, old tapes, old photographs, old memories. That was one of the problems.
It's not their fault. They were wonderful. We were fighting [Covid-19] all the way along.
How has your work changed over the last two years, have you just been doing it all on the phone?
A lot on the phone. Also because it's me and I have been around for such a long time and know so many people, they tend to call me and give me stories so it's not like I'm always going out or I'm dealing with second levels like p.r. people. I'm dealing with the people themselves, whose phone numbers I might have and who might have my phone numbers. So has it been easy? No, Kate, it's been very difficult, but I've managed to do it that way. We're doing the best we can.
A lot of people left the city during COVID, and I know you are a lifelong New Yorker. Did you consider it?
No. No. I have been all over the world for 40 years. I've been to Siberia, the Outback, the Congo, the Sahara. There's no place I have not been. I've seen the world. I would not move.
Where would I go? The Hamptons? I don't like the Hamptons. I had a house in the Hamptons and I sold it because it's most of the people I'm trying not to have dinner with. It’s the second level of PR people who are there, not all the friends that I might want to see. So, I haven't gone anywhere. I have been here in my apartment, and it's been quite difficult.
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With this documentary coming out, how does it feel at this point in your career to be getting this attention?
I'm not so sure. In the old days, if I got a documentary I would be so impressed with myself, but now the orthodontists are getting documentaries. It doesn't mean anything so much anymore, so I'm not sure that it's the most fabulous thing in the world.
How has the gossip industry changed since you started?
Well, the whole world has changed. Wardrobe has changed. Guys are now wearing clothes with the crotch grazing the ground, and the ladies are all showing their boobs and their behinds. That's changed. Manners have changed. Gentility has changed; language has gotten rougher.
Gossip has changed. It has gone, in my view, downward. It harms people now. I never harmed anyone. I was always fun or I would go at the cuticle, but I would never harm. I would never out anyone. I would never say if they were married and they were having an affair. I would never dog anyone.
If you were starting your career today, would you go into gossip reporting?
I didn't go into it in the first place. I was pushed into it. It was never my choice. Would I have gone into it? No.
I always wanted to write the great American novel. Obviously I can't do it, but 100,000 years ago whoever was the editor in chief was at DoubleDay at the time took me to lunch because I said I want to write this great American novel. So they said, here's what you need to do: You need to give us an outline, a list of characters, chapter headings and write the first chapter. I did all of that. I sent it to them. They read it all and they said: Now you know you cannot write a book.
How did you feel about that?
That was insulting.
The thing is, some people have this great ability to soar mentally and emotionally. I can't do that. I obviously am literal. I can't imagine.
Well, what makes you so good at what you do? Why are you the last gossip columnist standing?
I'm not good at anything. I'm only good at writing the kind of stuff that I write, and because I have a slight sense of humor, I can see the amusing things about life and that's all I've ever had: the sense of humor or the sense of the ridiculousness and the ability to write. I don't know that I'd be good at anything else.
What's the hardest part of the job or something people misunderstand about what you do?
If you're doing a daily column or anything else, it's the constancy. Every day facing a blank page. Every day you know you have to bring in something and you want to be flippant, you want to be amusing. You want to be entertaining. You have to be absolutely honest, but you can't be boring. Don't you have some of that in your work as well?
Absolutely. So, that feeling never goes away?
It is the same thing. You're going to hang up, and you're going to hope before you hang up that I will have said something at least clever or amusing that you can use. How many times can you sit on a phone with somebody or in person for an hour and think you don't have anything to write about? They were boring. You don't have a beginning line. You don't have an ending line. I mean it happens to us all.
The documentary goes into your friendship with former President Trump. You got a happy birthday tweet from him for your 90th birthday, right when things were shutting down for COVID. Have you seen him since he's left office?
No. It's not that I couldn't. It's that I did not. I think he's in a difficult period and he knows I'm there and I'm his friend. And when it's calm, yes, I will reach out. I am not reaching out at this moment. I hear from him. He calls or he sends a little note but I am not reaching out because I don't want anybody to ask me to write about him or say anything. Listen, I have my limitations as we all do, but one of the things in which I am not limited is friendship. If you're my friend, you stay my friend. Did you harm me? That's something else. But if you were my friend, I see no reason to turn my back on you.
Why would you not want to write about him now?
Because there's nothing I can say about him at this moment.
How is he different as a friend than he was as a president?
I don't know what that question is. I don't know what to do with that question. What does that mean?
You've known him for a long time. What do you know about him that we might not know after the four years of his presidency?
I'm not sure I know what to do with that because there was so much hate out there for him that I think he might have hardened or turned positions that I might not have seen or noticed before because before there wasn't that kind of hate directed at him. I saw him at his height and I was with him when he lost it all at one point. For instance, once I'm flying with him on his big plane, we were going somewhere and everything was very glamorous and terrific. And then maybe a few weeks later he had lost it all. I think it happened with Atlantic City, I think. I don't remember exactly when it was, but he never said a word about it, he never said “look what happened to me.” And I learned a lot from him then. That I thought was very, very classy. I don't know if anybody else ever saw him like that but I did.
Looking back on his presidency now, are you glad to have endorsed him publicly?
Is this gonna be all on Donald? I would never have supported Biden, who I think doesn't know he's yet president. So if I had a choice, of course I would always support him. I would not support Biden. So if you're going to ask me, would I have voted for Donald instead of Biden? Oh, absolutely.
You've been friends with Hillary Clinton, as well. Are you still close with her?
I like Hillary Clinton. I am close to Hillary Clinton. She was the first one who ever called me when my dog passed.
Tell me about your relationship with Rupert Murdoch [publisher of the New York Post]. Do you talk to him often in the course of your work?
He's not here that often. When I see him, we throw our arms around each other and we chuckle, we giggle and we laugh and we have great respect and affection for one another. Hey, I've been there 41 years. It's a long time. How long have you been doing this?
About 15 years. I was actually at the Post years ago.
I don’t often go there so I don’t see anyone. I wish you would come here and we could sit and have a glass of wine together. It would have been nice. OK, what else would you like to ask?
When you look back at that 41 years, is there anything you regret or is there anything you look back at and wish you'd done differently?
I guess I look back at the fact that I probably didn't make a difference in the world, that I didn't make a difference in anyone's life. I didn't make any needle move anywhere. It's just that I was there for the paper. The paper loved me and I loved the paper. I love New York no matter where it's going. It's my religion. I'm a devout New Yorker, so I love New York. I am a passionate red, white and blue flag waving American, and I loved the New York Post for what it is.
Would I like to have done some brilliant? Something like created a rocket? Well, yeah, it would have been nice. I wouldn't get on it, but I wouldn't mind to have created it. I'd like to have done some grand wonderful thing.
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