Working in fashion and media journalism can do strange things to you and apparently these things make you want to kill the editor of Vogue and dress up as a fireman and hold people hostage.
A former journalist on Women's Wear Daily, Peter Braunstein, who this week was in court in New York on sexual assault charges, was revealed to have planned to kill Vogue editor Anna Wintour – apparently he only got one ticket to the Vogue show in NY Fashion Week – and that was for him. He made a huge stink about it, which led to him being sacked from Vogue sister title WWD.
Braunstein wrote a personal manifesto (someone should have told him that party political manifestos are bad enough) and in it he wrote: "So I’ll tell you why I’m going to kill Anna Wintour - because I just feel like it".
This all happened before Braunstein held an ex-girlfriend, who was also the fashion editor on W magazine, hostage in October 31, 2005, and sexually assaulted her for 13 hours having dressed as a firefighter to trick his way into her Chelsea apartment.
According to the New York Post, there were no details in court of how Braunstein planned to kill Wintour, just that it was to be up close and personal. Just shooting her apparently would be "too impersonal". To be honest, the idea of being shot by someone has always appeared pretty personal to me.
"When I was a media reporter, there were many high-profile editors, and God knows they had big egos, but you could still get them on the phone. Remnick, Carter, Fuller, even Martha Stewart. But Wintour? She just never talked to peons like us," Braunstein wrote. "It was beneath her. And all the while I'm thinking 'Who is this skank?' She plays up this aristocratic, Marie Antoinette ‘Let them eat cake' routine, but, excuse me, can I get some proof that she holds a title of nobility that goes back to the 13th Century? "No. All she does is edit a magazine. That’s it. So what’s with the royalty routine?... I mean, for Christ's sake, the woman slept with Bob Marley, one of the most soulful people ever to walk the face of the earth. If that didn’t spiritualize her, nothing would." "Wintour will be escorted by eunuchs to a place in Hell run entirely by large rats. Even Satan can’t get in there, because he and the rats had a falling-out a couple of millennia ago. The rats, apparently, are unionized and Satan tried to break the union; there’s been a lot of bad blood ever since."
"When I was a media reporter, there were many high-profile editors, and God knows they had big egos, but you could still get them on the phone. Remnick, Carter, Fuller, even Martha Stewart. But Wintour? She just never talked to peons like us," Braunstein wrote.
"It was beneath her. And all the while I'm thinking 'Who is this skank?' She plays up this aristocratic, Marie Antoinette ‘Let them eat cake' routine, but, excuse me, can I get some proof that she holds a title of nobility that goes back to the 13th Century?
"No. All she does is edit a magazine. That’s it. So what’s with the royalty routine?... I mean, for Christ's sake, the woman slept with Bob Marley, one of the most soulful people ever to walk the face of the earth. If that didn’t spiritualize her, nothing would."
"Wintour will be escorted by eunuchs to a place in Hell run entirely by large rats. Even Satan can’t get in there, because he and the rats had a falling-out a couple of millennia ago. The rats, apparently, are unionized and Satan tried to break the union; there’s been a lot of bad blood ever since."
Clearly disturbed, Braunstein celebrated serial killer Son of Sam and the Columbine school shooters, who each get a special mention in the manifesto for having taken revenge on enemies who, like his own, didn't appreciate their talents. He also quoted rapper Notorious BIG – "You’re nobody 'til you kill a whole bunch of other people" – he could have added, if you get shot yourself.
Braunstein faces a possible 25 years-to-life sentence for first degree kidnapping. His lawyers are arguing that their client is mentally ill and shouldn't be held criminally responsible for the 2005 attack.
Prosecutors say Braunstein ignited smoke bombs while wearing firefighter gear and bluffed his way into the woman's apartment.
Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery…although his lawyers concede he attacked the woman.
A psychologist called by the defence, Dr. Barbara Kirwin, has testified that Braunstein is a "textbook case” of paranoid schizophrenia and a person who was determined to kill himself.
At its heart its a sad story. Wintour, of course, has a reputation as anyone who has read about her or read 'The Devil Wears Prada' (based on Nuclear Wintour), but weaponry? Surely another cappuccino is the answer. Maybe even a latte.
Gordon Macmillan
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