Thoughts on “Is Nikki Finke Losing her Mind?”
• First, the dismissed Maria Russo referred to in item 3 is a good friend of mine and my former editor. I try not to use the word “lie” too much, since the word gets a pretty good airing in our culture without my help. But Nikki’s claim that she had nothing to do with her firing and knows nothing about it is a capital L Lie. Not a mistake, an error, or a different perspective. It is something she knows not to be true and says it anyway. I am confident that in the near future documents will emerge to support that. In the meantime, if Nikki would like to sue me, as she has long promised she would, for saying that, I’m ready - and psyched! - to meet her in court.
• The fact that she would lie so blatantly about something so provably untrue tells you all you need to know about how seriously you should take her as a “journalist.”
• The letter at the top of the post perfectly captures the Finke method: misunderstanding, self-pity, unhinged rage, stupidity, titanic grandiosity, bullying, laughable grasp on the issues she’s dealing with.
• Studio people to whom this was addressed: It is because you and your people cooperate with her and her site that this continues and she is able to treat people this way. Why not just grow a hint of a backbone and say, we’re done with you. We’re done, crazy.
• And while you’re at it, forward more of these emails to me. The Nikkileaks project is getting underway.
• Hollywood, what must the rest of the galaxy that we take such a mediocre nutjob at all seriously here? But every industry gets the reporter it deserves…
• That said, has she ever actually gotten anyone fired even once? She has threatened to many that she will, but I haven’t found a case where it’s worked. She causes people heartburn, insult, annoyance, forces them to suffer slander. She threatens to sue everyone who disagrees with her (an odd predilection for an alleged journalist) but in the end, it would seem she can’t find any lawyers to take up the cases. She has made thousands of assistants cry, but in the end, it would seem she is mostly toothless.
• Which does not make it okay.
• People will oft tell me, when I talk about how crazy she is, that they equate that craziness with fearless, and thus her unhingedness suggests to some that it makes her an effective saber of the little man in Hollywood. If only that’s what she were, I’d like her nuttiness too. What I find truly revolting about Nikki is that in the mask of defender of the working stiff spends her time carrying water for powerful, including trashing their enemies in unvetted invective. When she lashes out at them, its rarely for the crimes against humanity that for which they deserve to be lashed, but crimes against her, like not giving her a piece of casting news first.
• My favorite part of the email: I sat next to Howard Fineman! How dare you question me?!
• And finally, as ever I close with a question to zillionaire Jay Penske who has put millions in Nikki’s pockets and continues to bankroll her terror campaign, how long will you continue to allow all this to happen in your name, and your corporation’s name which she invokes constantly? This isn’t just Nikki Finke doing this, this is on you buddy.
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