The Awl

Marty Singer Now Hot After Newly Min'd 'Hollywood Reporter'

Choire Sicha — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:01:30 +0000

I would say former Us Weekly editor Janice Min is settling in quite well as the new editor of the Hollywood Reporter. (They went with: Steve McPherson! Leaving ABC! Due to "Sex Probe"!) It seems worth it to say once again that bigshot Hollywood lawyer Marty Singer's letter to her is as terrible as his others; it's my opinion that it's unfathomable that anyone out there hires him.

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Marty Singer's Letter From Demi Moore to Perez Hilton

Choire Sicha — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:06:24 +0000

Earlier we were discussing celebrity attorney Marty Singer's letter-writing skills. Here, for instance, is one for you to read! It is a response he wrote after the Demi Moore-Perez Hilton dustup, in which Demi called Perez a child-pornographer after he posted revealing photographs of her daugther-and he told her that he wouldn't let her 15-year-old daughter dress like a skank, essentially. What possible question of law is involved in any of this is beyond me-and yet Marty Singer is getting paid to craft letters such as the one that follows.

The idea that Perez Hilton is libel-proof is pretty hilarious. Sure, he's a public figure-and he may have a reputation as a gossip and a mean person. That doesn't make you libel-proof-nowhere near. (For starters: "few plaintiffs will have so bad a reputation that they are not entitled to obtain redress for defamatory statements," Guccione v. Hustler Magazine.)

And now you can read Marty Singer's complaint against Gawker. It's a good laugh. (OH SORRY, is that defamatory? Actually, it is a description of fact. I laughed while reading it.)

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Who's Afraid Of Marty Singer?

Choire Sicha — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:41:09 +0000

Why do people take Marty Singer seriously? The cage-rattling, form-letter-rewriting Hollywood lawyer spews lawsuits like anxious starlets spew breakfast. Now, in his latest complaint, against Gawker, the New York Times refers to him as "the legendarily pugnacious Mr. Singer." The suit, according to Gawker (we have not read it, and as near as we can tell it has not been published online), asks for damages of $1 million-I know, seriously, what? A whole million dollars? You mean maybe six weeks of Gawker ad income? What a pitiful request!-for their publication of a video which depicted TV actors hanging out in states of undress. I have read and received letters from Marty Singer's office. You probably have too! They are often factually incorrect, distorting to actual events, and they create such a tenuous legal bubble of reasoning that one can barely take them seriously. They are particularly prone to insane misreadings of the texts that they complain about. Less experienced publishers find them frightening, mostly because they are 1. very long and 2. very irritating and 3. because Marty Singer (along with Lynda Goldman, and the rest of his crew) has worked very hard to establish his reputation as a bulldog or a terrier or whatever sort of dog is a tenacious ankle-biter. But the real sign you're in legal trouble with a celebrity is if they hire a lawyer who is not Marty Singer, and Gawker honcho Nick Denton is totally right to mock it on his Twitter.

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