Media mauler strikes again
THE writer behind the infamous “Elle on Earth” takedown piece is at it again.
As Page Six reported, Jacques Hyzagi skipped town for Hollywood after trashing Elle’s Editor-in-Chief Robbie Myers and its then-news editor Anne Slowey (not to mention the New Yorker, Politico, the Atlantic, Vogue, GQ and New York magazine) in a legendary Observer story that documented how Elle “ruined” his interview with Commes des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo.
Hyzagi landed a job in LA as a producer for Tavis Smiley’s eponymous PBS show — and now he’s published yet another piece excoriating yet another former employer. Again in the Observer, Hyzagi writes in the article — entitled “P BS” — that Smiley took a“f - - k buddy” on a trip to the Dakota Access pipeline protests, and then instructed Hyzagi to tell colleagues that the paramour was Hyzagi’s girlfriend to protect Smiley’s alleged office romances. He further accuses Smiley of “rigging” a presidential debate between Jill Stein and Gary Johnson by making up questions supposedly written by viewers.
And, never one to miss the opportunity to take a gratuitous shot at the powerful and highly respected, Hyzagi also calls out Times columnist Maureen Dowd for being ignorant (“I . . . was surprised to discover that for all of her rhetoric about Trump being an empty vessel being filled up at will by the Alex Joneses of the world, she had no idea who [philosopher] Leo Strauss was”), dubbed Amnesty International director Margaret Huang “clueless” and called “Silence of the Lambs” director Jonathan Demme “a washed-up dimwit who got lucky to option a Thomas Harris book.”
Hyzagi tells Page Six that he “didn’t go there with the intention of writing” about Smiley, but was provoked by what he saw as the host’s “hypocrisy.”
A rep for Smiley said, “Tavis Smiley has been a highly respected and award-winning broadcaster for [more than] 25 years. Mr. Hyzagi, however, was terminated after a mere 22 weeks as a producer on our television program. His vile and vicious rant has no legitimacy.” Hyzagi denies he was fired and tells us he quit.