If He Did It

Derek Blas-blog.

Derek Blasberg attends the Chanel Tribeca Festival Artists Dinner at The Odeon on June 10. (Photo: Ammar Rowaid/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Someone shit the bed at Gwyneth Paltrow’s home in the Hamptons recently. Would it surprise you to learn that it was reportedly Derek Blasberg?

Last week, a curious blind item ran in the celebrity gossip newsletter Popbitch. “It’s not all shits and giggles for New York’s upper crust as they head to the Hamptons for the summer season. It’s mostly just shits. For the last few weeks the Hamptons set’s favorite piece of gossip to text to each other has regarded a scandal at the home of Gwyneth Paltrow,” the newsletter reported.  “The story goes that a recent houseguest of Gwynnie’s catastrophically shat themselves in bed while staying there, then fled back to the city before they had to face the music.” 

I really have been looking for a reason to say this since I heard it on Gossip Girl a decade ago: Quelle horreur! Popbitch’s intrepid reporting continues: “Gwynnie’s guest won’t be the only shitter in the Hamptons this year. Ozempic-induced diarrhea is becoming a very hot topic of conversation between hosts there — because so many of their guests are using it. So expect laundrettes to be fully booked from July 4th.”

I would argue that democracy is shitting the bed, and maybe the Democratic party is shitting the bed, and very definitely whoever is in charge of Katy Perry’s career right now is shitting the bed. But according to the Daily Mail, the culprit of the crime at Paltrow’s house was none other than Derek Blasberg, the closest friend of every celebrity you checked JustJared for updates on in 2014. In 2016, New York Magazine called him the “Truman Capote of Instagram.” In 2020 Elle labeled him “the most connected man in fashion.” This week, Daily Mail calls him a “socialite and celebrity hanger-on.” (That strikes me as polite.) 

I think of Blasberg as the man who went around with Emma Watson to hide copies of a Maya Angelou book in the Union Square subway station to, like, stop Trump or something. I also think of him as the Succession “media and culture” (new money) consultant