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Could Jennifer Lopez give Miranda Priestly a run for her money?
Lopez’s former publicist Rob Shuter dished about working with the Kiss of the Spider Woman star and other celebrity clients during a Monday, April 20, appearance on Sirius XM’s The Megyn Kelly Show.
When host Megyn Kelly brought up how publicists are always dealing with stars’ wild demands and rude behavior, Shuter noted that his new novel It Started With a Whisper, which came out today, is about a celebrity publicist dealing with difficult clients — but that everyone can relate to having a “boss from hell.”
“I think that’s probably the most joyous thing about The Devil Wears Prada — it’s just really delicious to have someone awful,” he said. “I think we’ve all had to deal with these people. Celebrities can be particularly rude and nasty, but if you can survive high school, I promise you can survive working for the Spice Girls or Jessica Simpson.”
Or Lopez, who is known for her very specific demands, Kelly pointed out, noting that Shuter’s book describes him as the person who “was responsible for making sure that an Asian pear was within feet of Jennifer Lopez at any given moment.”
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“She was really specific,” acknowledged Shuter, who is the editor at large for The Daily Enquirer, “but I always found her sort of easy to work with.”
“I always say that after ‘yes’ the best answer is ‘no.’ People that are ‘maybe’ really annoy me,” he explained. “What I loved about Jennifer is she set the rules and they were her rules and she paid you well and she expected you to do it. So it was sort of easier to know what you were getting into.”
“She was very consistent,” he continued of the “Let’s Get Loud” singer, who has recently been turning to an AI companion for positive feedback, the National Enquirer reported. “She was very tough all the time. And I appreciated that. You knew where you stood with her.”
The pop star, 56, did have an infamously long rider — or list of demands for items, including the Asian pears and a specific type of flower, that she insisted on having backstage and in hotels.
“It was almost embarrassing,” admitted Shuter. “When I’d send it out, when she was on the morning shows or when she was doing press, I’d always apologize to the booker before I hit send. I was always like, ‘I’m so sorry that I have to send this, it’s so awful but I have to send it.’ ”
“So I was in on the joke,” he concluded. “I’d love to believe that I represented people well and I certainly didn’t betray people who paid my rent for a long time but I also appreciated how ridiculous it all was.”