From co-sleeping to sniffing armpits: there are quite a few bizarre tasks for the average Personal Assistant.
Journalist and society watcher Ella Vermeulen comments on the world of Hollywood and its surroundings. This time: the wonderful world of personal assistants from the stars.
Kardashian PA
Liz Muller, Kourtney Kardashian’s personal assistant, has opened up about her boss’s bizarre requests. That’s remarkable. For starters, almost every PA has to sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent word of how insane the celeb in question is from leaking. But it’s also striking because I thought celebs who asked such strange things had become an endangered species.
What does Kourtney want? Liz had to find, among other things, a life-size model swan with feathers that her boss wanted to do something with. Her work also includes sniffing the vagina-scented candles that Kourtney makes in a collab with Gwyneth Paltrow. And finding the perfect cut-off white shirt with too-long sleeves for Kourt’s look at the MET Gala (she was pregnant and wanted “a crop top, but dressier”).
Nineties
To enjoy! It took me back to the 1990s, when starlet Pia Zadora demanded her PA shave Pia’s armpits. And another poor soul had to go to the local health store to stock up on 25 coffee enemas for her boss, a hysterical country singer whose name was withheld. There are PAs who had to ensure that stripper poles were installed in hotel rooms and who had to stock up on $3,000 worth of weed for their employers per week (and were in danger of going to jail for it). And Barbra Streisand’s assistant was responsible for having every hotel room and bathroom decorated in a peach color, because this flattered Barb’s complexion so nicely.
Mariah Carey’s PA Molly was banned from dating for at least a year in order to be available to her boss at all times. As a PA, Jennifer O’Neill had to sleep in Lady Gaga’s bed and shower with her to calm Gaga’s separation anxiety. Ana Charlotiaux, Angelina Jolie’s French PA, revealed that she had to watch all her boss’s films, ‘even the bad ones’. And Christian Bale’s assistant Harrison Cheung was obliged to smell Chris’ armpits to see if he could go onto the red carpet feeling fresh and fruity and had to take care of not only Bale’s pets, but also the possums in his garden.
Come to think of that these days, when celebs are doing their best to appear as normal as possible. The fact that Liz can get out of school with impunity has everything to do with the waning attention for the Kardashians. Nothing is spontaneous in the reality show anymore, while Gen Z gets a kick out of the unadorned reality of TikTok. No wonder they can use every scrap of publicity, even if it has to be gathered through the assistant. Kim Kardashian congratulated her PA Stephanie Sheppard on her birthday with a series of tweets of herself in which Stephanie only partially or completely appeared in the distance. I have a bleak outlook for Kim & Co.
In every Glamial, Ella gives her unvarnished opinion about the tricks of famous faces from both Hollywood and Hilversum. Never miss a column? Then get the latest Glamial or subscribe via Tijdschrift.land.
