Bonnie and Pride

Magazine editor Bonnie Fuller. Photo Matthew Jordan for LVA Represents. Courtesy Simon and Schuster.

If the gossip blogs are to be believed, working for Bonnie Fuller is just a small step up from being Naomi Campbell’s maid, or manning the concierge desk at Russell Crowe’s hotel. So hated is the high profile New York City magazine editor that her staff have commiserated with each other on “I Survived Bonnie” internet forums and resorted to sophomorically gross acts of revenge. In a scathing 2004 profile in Vanity Fair, a former employee admitted to loathing Fuller so much that she booby-trapped her boss’s take-out dinner: “(one co-worker) had a bad cold, so she, um, pulled some stuff out of her nose. That went in the mini soufflé chocolate cakes. And the loaf of bread... that went inside my pants.”

It’s no wonder, then, that the publication of Fuller’s new memoir-meets-advice book — with the icky-cutesy-clunky title The Joys of Much Too Much: Go For the Big Life — The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You’ve Ever Wanted (Even If You’re Afraid You Don’t Have What It Takes) — was met with gleeful schadenfreude. It was a book everyone was looking forward to panning. And with few notable, fawning exceptions, Fuller has been accused of championing greed, destroying the credibility of the media (Vanity Fair’s Judith Newman once called her “the symbol for the End of Journalism as We Know It”) and setting an impossibly high standard for women. 

Which is why it’s so surprising to discover that alongside the banal advice about sending thank-you notes and the you-go-girl aphorisms (“Cancel that guilt trip!” “Join the Why Not? Club”) the book makes an unlikely and compelling case for female economic independence and the pleasures of having a job. Turns out the self-described “geeky girl” from Toronto, has made it to the top through a philosophy of excess — “much too much is just right” — that put her career front and center. “I truly believe,” she writes, “that the most fulfilling path in life involves discovering your passion, then finding the career that allows you to express that passion, then layering in love and family.”

Since she first helmed the Canadian fashion glossy Flare when she was 26, Fuller, now 49, has had a string of successes in magazine publishing, slaughtering the competition with a perfectionist drive and an uncanny instinct for what the public wants (in case you’re wondering: it’s sex, celebrity and shopping. The public? Not so deep). In 1989, she jumped from Toronto to New York to revamp the teen magazine YM, doubling its circulation, and then went on to launch the American version of French magazine Marie Claire. She famously took over Cosmopolitan from the legendary (and reluctant) Helen Gurley Brown, sexing up the tired title with moist cover lines like “The Bedroom Trick That Will Blow Him Away (All You Need Is a Hair Scrunchie).” Her subsequent move to Condé Nast’s Glamour was lamented by fans of the magazine’s smart, feminist-minded features. Fuller upped the sex quotient (“Tricks for Outstanding Orgasms!”) and sales along with it. But her tenure was brief. She was fired after two years and was unemployed for eight months, before landing at Us, a floundering celebrity weekly that Fuller overhauled, slashing the length of stories and filling the pages with cheeky captions, candid photos of stars, shopping tips, astrology charts, buzz-meters and fashion how-tos. It was the journalistic equivalent of deep fried Twinkies. Sales skyrocketed.

Courtesy Simon and Schuster.

While Fuller’s book is far, far from a feminist battle cry (or much of anything to get that worked up about, to be honest), her delight in her work is a welcome contrast to the growing media fuss about the so-called legions of women who are opting-out of their careers to pursue the joys of domesticity. In Fuller’s case, it was the plight of her housewife mother, who was left penniless when her lawyer husband left her, that’s contributed to her drive. Staying at home may be a great choice for some, she writes, “but what if you love your career, even if combining it with a husband and kids is a huge juggling act? And let’s be realistic. What about the vast majority of women — myself included — who cannot afford to drop out and just raise kids?” Dismissing the same, aspirational women’s magazines she once edited (you don’t get as far as Fuller has without honing a skill for having conveniently flexible morals) for their fantasy depiction of organized homes, slim figures, flawless skin and neatly pressed hems, she advises readers to leave the dishes in the sink, forget about the dust bunnies and give up on the idea of the “perfect family vacation.”

Where Fuller doesn’t let things slip is at the office. With unintentionally funny understatement she admits that she might not be the most sensitive of employers — “sometimes I just don’t have time to ask my staff how their weekend was” — then goes on to advise readers to mimic their boss’s work ethic. For Fuller, that means routinely working until 2 a.m., reading magazine proofs in the hospital delivery room, returning to work three weeks after delivery and breast-feeding during conference calls. An oft-cited criticism is that Fuller worked at Us while one of her daughters was undergoing cancer treatment. In Fuller’s defense, her husband quit his job to care for their children, while Fuller kept her position at Us to support the family and maintain their health insurance. (And to be completely fair, if Fuller had been a man whose wife stayed home to look after an ailing child, would this have become an issue at all?)

In an industry in which job-hopping is ubiquitous, competition for jobs and scoops is cutthroat and there is no shortage of divas, Fuller is a pariah nonpareil. (Forbes magazine once sniffed that “the morning Bonnie starts work at her latest job, she’s sending out résumés for the next.”) Her greatest crime seems to be that she is an arriviste with poor taste and even worse manners. As she wryly points out in her book, she does not enjoy the clout or respect of Vogue’s icy yet revered Anna Wintour or beloved former Glamour editor Ruth Whitney. Even as she’s risen in her field (twice being named Ad Age’s editor of the year), Fuller’s stature has diminished. It doesn’t help that the titles she heads up are evermore salacious. She currently has a very lucrative position as the editorial director of American Media, the publisher of bottom-feeder supermarket tabloids like Star, Globe and National Enquirer. Perhaps the lowest point in her stint there was in 2003 when Globe printed a sensationalist, the-slut-deserved-it story about the woman who accused NBA star Kobe Bryant of sexual assault. The paper reprinted a photo of the woman at her high school prom, dress hiked up to reveal a garter belt. The headline read: “Kobe Bryant’s Accuser: Did She Really Say No?”

Still, as numerous as Fuller’s transgressions might be (is there punishment enough for a woman who added “Bennifer” and “bump-watch” to the vernacular?), there seems to be more than a little elitist bullying in the hysterical, end-is-nigh condemnation of her. One needn’t look any further than CNN’s mythic coverage of OJ Simpson’s white Bronco, or the partisan puppetry at Fox News, or the increasing toothlessness of the Washington press corps to see that Fuller and her tabloid empire are not alone in their dumbing-down of the news. As empty-calorie as her publications might be, they do a far better job at capturing the public’s complicated, love-hate tango with celebrity than the allegedly more serious titles like Vanity Fair, whose puff pieces on stars are as breathless and adoring as Harlequin Romances. When Fuller revamped Us, she added a section called “Stars, They’re Just Like Us,” featuring shots of frumpy, sweaty celebs schlepping groceries, picking their teeth, slurping Starbucks coffee and exiting gas station washrooms. Nothing better sums up the almost pathological attitude the public has towards stars — lapping up their albums, movies, TV shows, fashion lines, perfumes and ghost-written memoirs — while simultaneously revelling in their downfall.

Kind of like the media world’s fascination with Fuller herself.

The Joys of Much Too Much: Go For the Big Life — The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You’ve Ever Wanted (Even If You’re Afraid You Don’t Have What It Takes) is published by Fireside Books and is in stores now.

Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window.