Advertisement

No gossip here

Share
Special to The Times

Jules ASNER wrote “Whacked,” a new novel set in Hollywood about a lover spurned who plots creative revenge. She was the co-host of “E! News Daily” and host of “Revealed With Jules Asner.” She is married to Steven Soderbergh.

You’re on your third career -- model, T.V. anchor, author.

I was never really a model. That somehow is in my bio. The whole thing is I was tall since I was a child -- you’re either a model or you play basketball.

When did you start writing?

I always thought when I grew up maybe I’d write a book and all of a sudden I’m 35. I started a few years ago -- it was based on a real-life breakup I had. And it made me crazy! So I started it four or five years ago and I stopped. I felt like writing about it put energy into it, and I was happily married. But I didn’t want to be one of those people who hadn’t finished a novel.

Advertisement

You got blurbed by Jackie Collins. That is basically like getting knighted by the Queen.

First of all, it’s even more fantastic than that! I had a friend who was on a flight from JFK to L.A. Jackie Collins was reading the galley. They took an iPhone photo of it! It’s one of the highlights of my life. Steven won the Palme d’Or -- well, Jackie Collins holding the book was really fantastic. I was like, can I get this made into a T-shirt? She’s sold 400 million books!

I was going to ask if you’d ever been a crazy person like in the book -- and apparently you have.

I think women get labeled a lot as being crazy. But I think men make us crazy. All the technology now, it’s easy to check up on people. Everyone’s leaving this electronic trail behind them. Oh, I’ll just check once! I’ll pick up that phone. Like I said this was based on a bad relationship I was in years ago. It makes you feel terrible being that person. But I don’t do that anymore.

I actually saw an ex across the street yesterday. It all came back. I wanted to kill him.

You’ve got loves of your life and breakups of your life, that kind of thing. They leave a mark. It stays with you, a bad aftertaste.

So is there a club yet? Do you just hang out all day with Ann Leary and Gigi Grazer?

No! Actually, Gigi was really nice. She gave me a quote for the book and I’ve never met her. I think she’s very witty and talented. I think the closest is -- I work out of the [New York City writer’s space] Paragraph on 14th street. That’s the closest thing I have to a club -- going where no one talks to me. You’re not allowed to talk on the phone. You can hear people typing and it makes you feel like, “I have to write too!” You can get your low-cal turkey Quiznos and come up and eat it in silence.

You did put in some serious time in the salt mines of celeb news. Did you ever get your hands dirty?

Advertisement

Um, no, it was all pretty Hollywoody fluffy. No, I’m glad I stopped doing it when I stopped doing it. If I still worked for some show like that, waiting around to do an interview with Paris Hilton or something like that, I’d throw myself out the window. I think the business has changed a lot. I remember I interviewed this very big star, a macho guy, somebody came and sprayed something on a toothbrush and then started combing his hair to cover his bald spot while he was talking to me. And I was like, we’re not going to acknowledge this is happening? We’re just going to talk about how nice the hotel is?

It has changed. Both the pace, and the interest in minutia.

It used to be someone would do an interview with Barbara Walters. Then it was Barbara and “Entertainment Tonight.” Now there’s so much celebrity stuff out there. I feel like I’ve heard every story about George Clooney possible. I know he has that pig! I know he played baseball in college! And I love him -- I like him a lot. Come on -- you must know way too much about Madonna.

Oh, I do. So your husband is some sort of indie film director? Are his movies any good?

His movies are great. He’s very nice.

That’s good. You don’t want to be married to some schmuck.

He’s very nice. And he read the book and I think he was only really scared once.

Advertisement