Saturday, December 18, 2004

Socialite Smackdown: Liz Cohen Versus Dori Cooperman

In a perfect world, all socialites would take their cue from our elegant blog wife and favorite aristo, the spectacular Miu Von Furstenberg. Unfortunately, life complicates itself unnecessarily, things get dreadful (Averted Gaze), and now the volatile world of PR Socialites may just erupt into the most vicious and harrowing turf war since, since, well, the Bloods-Crips frisson, darling, only (The Corsair sips wanly at a 1943 Chateau Latour, Premier Grand Cru Classe, Pauillac, and pronounces it "a naive wine .. yet fascinating"), to be sure, this little turf war will most likely be over a tony couture ball. And what have you.

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Above: Dori Cooperman, in center, surrounded by some swell pals.

The Daily News' Most excellent gossip scribe Ben Widdicombe chronicles the latest socialite -- or, as he calls them, "people of dollar" -- contretemps, between Liz Cohen and Dori Cooperman (a Paris Hilton pal, childhood friend of Lizzie Grubman's), replete with the requisite snatches of snitches, riches and bitches:

"The two pretty party girls were arguing and 'touching noses,' according to a witness, around 11 at the Dior-sponsored Young Collectors Council Artist's Ball.

"'... They were going at it, really fighting,' says the snitch.

"'Yesterday the catfighting cuties didn't want to talk about the incident. 'We're not friends,'" Cohen told me. 'Dori's not even on my radar.'"

Sniffsniff ...mrrreow! ... scratchscratch (The Corsair lights up a Cuban Partagas Seleccion Privada No. 1)

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Above: Liz Cohen (black top) cold lounging with "the homiez." (image via NYSocialDiary)

"Cooperman said: 'There's no argument. It was nothing to do with me and Liz.'

"Well, if one must have a cage match, it might as well be in a Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda."

Non Yacht virgin Cooperman notwithstanding, note the delicious opening to Vanessa Grigoriadis' influential Seven Sisters-Power Girls article for New York, re: Liz Cohen, where she is rendered terrible in her glorious wraith:

"A couple of years ago, Lara Shriftman, a 26-year-old publicist, and one of her employees, socialite Liz Cohen, 28, had an idea. They decided to transform a Betsey Johnson boutique salesgirl -- a 25-year-old transplant from London named Alice Larkin -- into the season's preeminent it-girl. To this end, the publicists began outfitting the clerk in free designer clothes, putting her up in their summer homes in the Hamptons, and taking her in their limos when making their nightly rounds of movie premieres, dinners for eight, and junior-committee benefits. At each event, they made sure that Larkin was photographed draped around celebrities like Leo DiCaprio or Kate Moss or Serena Altschul; the next day, from their sunny twelfth-floor office in the garment district, they leaked 'nice' items about Larkin to the people they call their 'favorite friends' -- W's Kevin West, Vogue's Alexandra Kotur, Quest's Kristina Stewart, and Richard Johnson of 'Page Six.'

"Up until then, Shriftman had focused her considerable energies on promoting mostly inanimate objects like cell phones and $1,000 pumps. Now she was curious to see whether she could work her magic on an actual person. As it turned out, she could. Within six months, Larkin had become the toast of the town ... taking her turn as a Manhattan File cover girl, providing pithy quotes for the Cosmo story 'How I Fell in Love With My Workout.' (A December 1998) Vogue featured an article on where she gets her highlights done.

"Alas for would-be Emma Woodhouses, the similarities to Jane Austen ended there: Larkin soon set the publicists' nifty experiment on its head. On the weekend of (Ginny Bond's much publicized wedding) marriage at the Hotel Bel-Air, Larkin began an affair with the husband of one of the inner circle, Samantha Kluge Cahan (3rd story down), the 27-year-old daughter of billionaire John Kluge. 'I'd go to my job, and that filthy illegal British whore would take my husband to a suite in the SoHo Grand,' complains Kluge.

"Six months later, this bit of gossip made all the tabloids when Kluge filed for divorce against Cahan. 'The day I threw that jerk out, he was crying and protesting and saying things like 'But my heart found a home with you!' says Kluge, fiddling nervously with the clasp on her Fendi bag. "Well, hon, your dick found a home somewhere else." The aggrieved heiress was not to be underestimated: Within days, Larkin found herself a virtual leper on the young-socialite scene. When she showed up at Shriftman and (Liz) Cohen's next party, she was brusquely expelled -- 'You're so ugly you look like a man,' sneered Cohen from the other side of the velvet rope. Larkin ran sobbing out of Life's VIP room. 'I loved Liz so much -- she was my best friend,' she says now. 'But I guess they cared about Samantha more than me.'"

That Liz Cohen ... she's gotta be starting something ...





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Get a life Roxanne