"We'll meet at Marmont. You'll make the reservation. Now here's what's going to happen: You'll buy me a steak and a glass of wine. I'll take two or three bites and make you finish it. I'll critique what you're wearing and, if you're over a size 4, I'll tell you you're fat to your face."
This is my introduction to Leslie Gornstein, the straight-talking celebrity journalist best known as the voice behind E!'s Answer B!tch column and podcast. Her first book, The A-list Playbook, is climbing up Amazon's bestsellers list and she's already schooling me on how A-listers really live and act. With topics on how to "plan a wedding for fun and profit" and "raise a baby without touching it," you can just picture all the aspiring starlets pushing aside their Bible to make room for the Playbook.
Of course, the tips are delivered with a side of Gornstein's specialty: sarcasm. "Sometimes I jokingly say that this country fought a revolution for nothing because our new royalty is the celebrities," says Gornstein. "There's a section in my book about moving, how [A-listers] have the money to hire a moving company to move a chair from one room to another. That's Louis XIV all over again."
To Gornstein, celeb obsession is a legitimate sociological, psychological and anthropological phenomenon. And tonight, Chateau Marmont's intimate dining room is like a festering Petri dish, ripe for scientific study: "90210" star Shenae Grimes is eating lettuce, Katy Perry is twirling her hair and talking about herself, and someone from "L Word" is attempting to make the scene.
Like any A-lister worth a multi-million dollar endorsement, Gornstein is seated with her back to the crowd. Her assistant Andie Dagan, aka the B!tchling (and writer of the funny Celebrity Snacker blog), is also in position, ready to fulfill Gornstein's needs: compliment the clutch she didn't pay for, order her dessert, and eat her bread. ("Snorting heroin at the table would be less egregious than eating bread," says Gornstein.)
Of course, as the Bars & Clubs editor, I'm most insterested in asking Gornstein how to party like an A-lister. Her answer comes shattering down: "A-listers don't go out to clubs."
Come again?
Going out to a club is hard work when you're a celebrity. Yes they're having a good time: they're getting comped, they're getting bottle service, but they're there to increase their visibility. A-listers don't need to do that. They can go out to dinner with friends and then go to freakin' Diddy's house and have good times. In Hollywood, going to a club is as much work as a premiere. Stars don't go to a premiere to have a good time.
Even when they're treated like royalty?
The VIP area at a club is pretty much like being at somebody's house. You might not even be visible. Plus the paparazzi are waiting for you outside and if you're already A-list, you don't want or need the paparazzi. They've done their job for you in past years.
Define A-list.
If people are going to a movie to see you as opposed to a concept like Batman, you're an A-lister. In other words: Clooney, Pitt, Jolie. You’re usually commanding 10 to 15 million a picture. Your name can green light a picture like Will Smith. You just dream about doing a movie and like a giant pile of money shows up at your house. That’s an A-lister. So you don't see Drew Barrymore swinging from a chandelier over at Bardot unless it's an official Oscar party.
But Drew Barrymore does hit the town and she seems so much more down-to-earth.
You can't be that powerful and be normal. I think when you are that famous, that powerful and that well-known, you cannot be down-to-earth. You just can't. I have seen her right out here on the patio, sucking on a beer and smoking a cigarette. It's not like she's doing Bellini shots off of some guy's ass. Still, anyone who has an assistant fulltime, or two assistants in the case of Kate Hudson, that's not normal.
I know Christina Aguilera's not a movie star, but she's a really big celebrity and she loves partying at clubs like Villa with her husband.
I'm sure it's as much about making sure people know that their marriage is fine. Otherwise they could just go to a restaurant—go in through the back, get a private booth, go out through the back—and no one would ever know they were there. You don't go to a place like that unless there's a message to be sent and in their case I'm sure it's, 'our marriage is fine. And also we're still powerful enough to get a private table.'
Why do famous guys like David Spade tend to go out more than their female counterparts?
If you're single and you're a male celebrity, you can get laid, comped and admired. Girls don't go to clubs to get laid.
What's your advice for approaching a celebrity at a club?
They don't want to meet you. They would pay not to meet you. In fact, that's what they do. They pay people to never meet you. They hire bodyguards, publicists. If they wanted this table, we'd be out right now.
I guess that obliterates any and all dreams of becoming besties with Diddy.
Diddy's a megalomaniac. He kicked somebody out of his white party for wearing ivory. And that's very entertaining. But do I want someone like that in my house? No. But that's what people think. They dream of meeting him and having him over for dinner. This is a megalomaniac who would kick you out of his white party for wearing ivory and you want to feed him?
Alexandra Le Tellier is Bars & Clubs editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
