It was one of the most anthropologically fascinating dinner parties I ever attended. Cindy Adams, The New York Post gossip G.O.A.T., feted her 94th birthday at her rococo Park Avenue apartment in April.
We joked about her party motto: “If you’re indicted, you’re invited.” (She inherited the line from her late husband, the comic Joey Adams, who coined it to describe Roy Cohn’s louche soirees in the disco days.)
I was mesmerized looking around at an amazing web of scheming New York power brokers. A penthouse full of pulped egos, famous people who had had crazy downfalls. A spidery crop of tabloid Gotham villains uneasily circling one another and eating animal crackers and ice cream in the red-lacquered, Ming dynasty’d-out lair of the tabloid queen.
Woody and Soon-Yi were standing quietly in the middle of the room.
Bill O’Reilly was there with an assistant who was handing out cards awarding a free subscription to his substack. Nearby was Robert Thomson, the top lieutenant and best friend of Rupert Murdoch, the mogul who fired O’Reilly for sexual misconduct at Fox News. (Remember the loofah?!)
Kellyanne Conway was prowling, as was Don Lemon, who lost his CNN perch after saying Nikki Haley was no longer in her prime.
The smiling governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, was standing a few feet from the man she replaced and disavowed after he was accused of sexual transgressions. Andrew Cuomo was also in good spirits, with his lovely 93-year-old mother, Matilda, on his arm. He was out of a job, but New York media and political circles were buzzing that he was eyeing Gracie Mansion.
