Latest news with #DianeVonFurstenberg
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hollywood agog over new memoir by Diane von Furstenberg's billionaire mogul husband in which he reveals he's been sleeping with countless men during their 50-year relationship... while she once bedded Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal in a single weekend
Billionaire movie mogul Barry Diller first met the 'deliriously glamorous' fashion queen Diane von Furstenberg at a super smart Manhattan dinner party in 1974. On that occasion the haughty Belgian creator of the iconic 1970s wrap dress snubbed the gauche movie man – as did her then husband, German playboy Prince Egon von Furstenberg, who immediately told Diller his trousers were too short. But when Barry and Diane met again months later, it was a very different story. The pair clicked and were soon in the grip of a torrid passion that spawned one of America's most formidable power couples. 'There was a glow around us that was setting off sparks . . . I was functioning without a brain, not a thought in my head, being willed on by pure primitive urges,' gushes the hard-nosed Hollywood executive in a highly revealing new autobiography. Diller, who was at that time the 32-year-old head of TV and film studio Paramount Pictures, and his 27-year-old lover were inseparable for most of the next 50 years, eventually marrying in 2001. But their relationship was unorthodox in the extreme. She was one of the world's most sexually voracious women, described by friends as the 'ultimate flirt' and even by Diller as unable 'to sit down without being louche'. She enjoyed a series of flings with other men, including an affair with the actor Richard Gere, which began in 1981 and led to a split with Diller that lasted a decade. Not that Diller was a choirboy himself. The big revelation in his new book, Who Knew, is that he is gay and enjoyed regular dalliances with men. Hardly surprising, then, that when the now 83-year-old told his wife, 78, that he planned to publish a tell-all memoir, she had just three words of warning: 'Just get ready'. Diller, estimated to be worth £3.4billion, was for decades one of the most formidable men in Hollywood, earning the nickname 'Killer Diller' for his ability to reduce even the most hardened executives to tears. But, despite his reputation, he avoided the limelight. And there was good reason for that, as he has now confirmed: he was terrified of being publicly outed at a time when being openly gay was still not accepted in Tinseltown. Diller has claimed to be taken aback by the excited media reaction to the revelation of his sexuality in his memoir published on Tuesday, since it was an open secret among Hollywood insiders. But even they assumed that his union with von Furstenberg had to be purely a marriage of convenience, a strictly platonic union. As the artist Andy Warhol once observed: 'I guess the reason Diller and Diane are a couple is because she gives him straightness and he gives her powerfulness.' But in Who Knew, Diller insists that nothing could have been further from the truth, describing their relationship as 'an explosion of passion that kept up for years'. He relates how they could barely keep their hands off each other after they met for the second time at a soirée a year after she first ignored him that night in 1974. 'While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman,' Diller says, adding: 'Yes, I also liked guys, but that was not a conflict with my love for Diane . . . I have never questioned my sexuality's basic authority over my life (I was only afraid of the reaction of others).' Within 24 hours of their second meeting, they were on von Furstenberg's sofa at her palatial Manhattan apartment 'wound around each other, making out like teenagers, something I hadn't done with a female since I was 16'. She promptly ditched another boyfriend (her relationship with the German prince was a marriage of convenience to conceal the fact he was bisexual) and they reconvened at Diller's LA mansion. In what he describes as an 'explosion of pent-up demand', Diller recalls them leaving friends by the pool to have sex in a guest house. Readers will have to decide whether these tales of unbridled passion are Diller's attempt to reassure his wife their marriage hasn't been a total sham. While he may not be a household name, in Tinseltown Barry Diller was a man to be reckoned with. At Paramount he was responsible for giving the green light to such classic films as The Godfather Part II, Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. He later set up the Fox TV network with Rupert Murdoch and brought us The Simpsons, whose vicious, bullet-headed boss, Mr Burns, was reportedly inspired by Diller. He reveals in his book how he was once seated next to Princess Margaret at a Hollywood dinner shortly after the release of Saturday Night Fever in 1977. The late Queen's sister said she'd like to invite its star, John Travolta, for tea at her hotel. Diller duly arranged a meeting only for the actor to complain to him afterwards: 'She hit on me!' (Travolta was then 33, Margaret 47.) Diller is still revered as one of the most brilliant operators in Hollywood history and remains chairman of the digital media company IAC, but nowadays prefers to spend time on his 305ft schooner Eos, one of the world's biggest sailing yachts. He and von Furstenberg are often accompanied on trips by their friends Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his soon-to-be-wife Lauren Sanchez. It's clear von Furstenberg, who is proud to be 'sexually fluid' having reportedly slept with men and women by the score, knew about Diller's men. 'Today, he opened to the world,' she said this week. 'To me, he opened 50 years ago. All I can tell you is Barry and I have had an incredible life for 50 years. We have been lovers, friends, married, everything. And, you know, for me, the secret to honour life, and to honour love, is never to lie.' That's fine for her to say now – and Diller echoes her noble sentiments by insisting in the book that he never pretended he was straight – but the couple have spent years evading or ignoring questions about his personal life. A few months after their 2001 marriage, for instance, she made clear to Vanity Fair magazine that rumours their marriage was only platonic were entirely wrong and that 'everything has always been normal' in their relationship. 'We share the same bed,' she said. 'We go on vacation together . . . It's so weird that people can even ask.' By 2013, when she and Diller still retained separate homes in New York, von Furstenberg was sticking to the same script when a New York Times interviewer mentioned to her that there was 'a lot of curiosity' about their marriage. 'I don't understand what is there to understand,' she responded. 'This man has been my lover, my friend and he's now my husband. I've been with him for 35 years. At times we were separated, at times we were only friends, at times we were lovers, at times we're husband and wife, that's our life.' The following year, von Furstenberg published her own memoir – but nowhere in its 240 pages did she address her husband's sexuality. Her past coyness about discussing Barry's bedroom habits was definitely unusual for a sexual adventuress who delights in retelling tales of her conquests and who Vogue once dubbed 'an exotic cat woman seductress'. In a 2024 TV documentary, von Furstenberg boasted of how Mick Jagger and David Bowie once suggested she join them for a threesome: 'I considered it and I thought: 'OK, this is a great thing to tell your grandchildren, then I came back to the room and they were two little skinny things, and I didn't',' she recalled. She also revealed that while once staying at LA's Beverly Wilshire hotel, she slept with both Warren Beatty and Ryan O'Neal on the same weekend. 'How about that? I was very proud,' she said. The mother of two children (by first husband Egon) added: 'If I didn't have kids, I can't even imagine what I would have become, because I would've had no restraint.' (Her daughter Tatiana revealed that von Furstenberg was so remiss as a mother that it wasn't until she went to a doctor at the age of 21 that she discovered she had a serious neuromuscular condition, Brody myopathy, that causes weakness and cramps.) A 2015 biography of von Furstenberg, with which she collaborated, detailed how she continued to play the field in the years before she and Diller finally married. Leaving her two children at home with the nanny, she partied at New York's Studio 54 nightclub, where male couples would have sex in back rooms and drugs were passed around by bare-chested men. While she's denied being a lesbian, she admits her tastes have also run to women, especially a heroin-addicted Italian supermodel named Gia who died of Aids in the 1980s. Von Furstenberg was also a regular at gay bars in Manhattan where she'd go dressed as a man. Why Diller has decided to publicly address his sexuality so late in the day remains unclear and friends are reportedly bemused. (Some expressed similar confusion when he suddenly wed von Furstenberg 24 years ago, although in that case it was assumed to have been for tax reasons.) He suggests it may be because of the immense 'guilt' he still feels that he failed to step forward to try to be a 'role model' for other gay men. After an unhappy and isolated childhood in Beverly Hills, with parents who neglected him and a drug-addicted older brother who bullied him (and was later shot dead in a drug-related incident aged 36), Diller had a nervous breakdown aged 19. It left him with a crippling shyness which never completely left him as he battled his way up the Hollywood ladder. It would also be fascinating to know when and how he broke the news of his preference for men to von Furstenberg and how she reacted. Diller, a man used to getting his way, isn't about to reveal any more than he wants, snapping to a New York Times interviewer last week that he had cut short his promotional book tour as 'I am not up for interrogation about aspects of my personal life'. Indeed, while Diller insists he's now 'too old to care' what people think, he glosses over the nitty gritty of his relationships with men. He writes sketchily of his first sexual encounter with a 'shaggy blond guy' who, from the terrace of a West Hollywood apartment, signalled to a 16-year-old Diller, sitting in his car at traffic lights, to come up to him. He doesn't dwell either on his notorious reputation as a ferocious boss and business adversary whose hair-trigger temper was likely to explode at any time. Staff at Diller's various offices reportedly lived in dread of him descending on them. 'There's no tolerance for errors; Diller is known to shred employees if his tea isn't properly brewed,' reported the Tampa Bay Times in 2002. Diller admitted to the New York Times last week: 'I'm a difficult manager.' Whether he's also been a difficult husband is for his wife to decide.
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hollywood mogul Barry Diller who came out as gay now insists he was NEVER 'closeted'
Hollywood mogul Barry Diller, who came out as a gay in his new memoir after decades of marriage to fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, is now insisting that he was never in fact 'closeted.' Diller, 83, who has a net worth of $4.6billion, spilled his juicy showbiz secrets in his autobiography Who Knew, which was published Tuesday. The former Paramount Boss says in the book he knew he was gay from the age of 11, but his older brother was a drug addict and he did not want to inflict the shame of two 'broken' children on his parents. His sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood for decades, but the wealthy entrepreneur is just now confirming it for the general masses. Now in a new interview, he has claimed that the 'door was always open,' saying: 'If I was in a closet, it was made of glass and full of light.' He maintained that he 'wasn't ever lying' and 'never pretended anything' but merely 'never declared,' according to the Hollywood Reporter. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. The tycoon discussed the 'casual cruelty' of hearing a Paramount executive making gay jokes in front of him while he, Diller, was head of the company. 'I wasn't closeted - I just never declared,' he stated, adding that he felt the 'reaction' to a viral excerpt of the book in which he came out as gay was 'wild.' The 83-year-old billionaire marveled: 'Suddenly I'm "coming out." At my age! Diane, my wife, and I laughed about it. It was absurd. The door was always open. If I was in a closet, it was made of glass and full of light.' Of the responses to the book, he said: 'People can say what they want. I didn't want to live a hypocritical life. That was the main thing. So I just lived as I lived. But yes, of course it left a mark. Any minority experience does. That's universal.' However he also doubled down on the misgivings he expressed in his memoirs about not having been more candid about his sexuality to the general public. 'I do wish that I had made a declaration,' he acknowledged. 'I wasn't ever lying. I've never pretended anything. I never hid. People in my circle knew about my life with both men and with Diane. The only thing I didn't do was make a declaration. I chose not to for a lot of complicated reasons.' Diller said again: 'I was never hiding. But I didn't issue a press release either. And yes, there were moments, especially early in my career, when I was aware of how people might react. But in practical terms, it didn't hold me back.' Although he never let his sexuality impede him professionally, he observed that the 'internal part - the shame, the concealment - that leaves a mark,' which he explained is 'why I wrote about it' in the autobiography. Diller reflected that in this day and age 'the idea of "coming out" in the old sense - it's mostly obsolete now. Young people may still struggle, but we've come so far. And that momentum can't be stopped, no matter who's in office.' In the book, he gave a a glimpse into who exactly he was messing around with, having revealed his wife was the only woman he could ever love. Diller allegedly had liaisons with Michael Bennett, famous Broadway director and choreographer behind A Chorus Line, as well as Johnny Carson's stepson, according to The New York Times. Columnist Maureen Dowd didn't name the stepson and the book isn't out for another 10 days. But Carson only had one stepson - Joe Holland - who died of AIDS in 1994. Diller's other lover Michael Bennett was also killed by the disease in 1987 aged just 44. And, at the time, the lifestyle choice could have ended his career, telling the outlet that it was 'better to be called a failure than a fairy.' However, that didn't stop Hollywood from nearly outing him over the years. In 1974, he caught wind that People was planning on writing a 'mean and homophobic' piece on him. But when it came out, it mainly criticizing his business acumen, leaving the New Yorker relieved at the time. Twenty years later, while he was working at QVC and was trying to acquire Paramount, a rumor about him having AIDS began circulating. When a Times reporter contacted him to ask him about it, he said he was shocked and told the reporter he was fine. His friend, Michael Eisner, outed him to Disney executives in 1995, writing in an internal board memo that 'the fact that he is homosexual should have no weight' when considering him for the role of CEO of the company, The Times reported. It doomed his chances of getting the job, the publication said. And throughout his marriage to von Furstenberg, they lived separately - him in the Carlyle hotel on the Upper East Side, her above her business in the Meatpacking District. The first time he met the 'deliriously glamorous' fashion queen von Furstenberg at a super-smart Manhattan dinner party in 1974, she'd rudely brushed the reserved movie man aside to talk to someone else. As Diller describes it, he was an outsider in her snooty world: 'I was standing alone next to the fireplace feeling I did not belong in this group when "Prince" Egon von Furstenberg [Diane's first husband] walked up to me and said, "Your pants are too short."' But when he and Diane met again a year later at another fabulous soiree, she was suddenly all over him. 'I was instantly bathed in such attention and cozy warmth I couldn't believe it was the same woman I'd been dismissed by a year earlier,' he recalled. Later… 'We stood at the door, and I said, "I want to call you," and she said, "I want you to."' But overall, Diller is ready to tell the truth after all these years in his upcoming book. 'I wanted to tell the story, and I knew if I told the story, I had to tell the truth,' he told The Times. Diller says he knows most people had guesses his sexuality long before he came out and joked that he was in a brightly-lit, glass closet prior to coming out. He said not doing so helped him achieve incredible career success - partly because he believes all his anxiety was centered around being outed, which meant he was a decisive and fearless leader. But Diller says he's also ashamed he didn't come out sooner and wishes he could have served as a role model for gays of his generation who felt ashamed of their sexuality.
Wall Street Journal
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Barry Diller on Serendipity, Sexuality and Success
Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one's career. ICONOCLASTS DON'T waste their time or ours. We know entertainment mogul Barry Diller bested most of his rivals, although a few—notably Sumner Redstone—outmaneuvered him. So when Diller takes his gloves off in his new memoir, he confronts what we couldn't see. His backstage positioning to chomp entire companies whole; the contrast between working for someone else versus for himself; and, on a personal level, his demons. Case in point, Diller on his attraction to men: 'I had wanted so desperately to alter my sexuality as a child and teenager and I had tried so hard and failed. I was left with an unquenchable need to be vigilant about every other aspect of my life.' On his much gossiped-about relationship with his now-wife, Diane von Furstenberg: 'We aren't just friends. Plain and simple, it was an explosion of passion that kept up for years.'
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Billionaire Barry Diller names his secret gay lovers...including stepson of American icon
Billionaire Barry Diller might be surprised that people care about his secret gay lovers, but that hasn't stopped him from naming names. Diller, 83, who has a net worth of $4.6billion, is spilling some of his secrets ahead of his May 20 book launch for Who Knew. His sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, but the wealthy entrepreneur is just now confirming it for the general masses. And now he's giving a glimpse into who exactly he was messing around with, having revealed wife Diane Von Furstenburg was the only woman he could ever love. Diller allegedly had liaisons with Michael Bennett, famous Broadway director and choreographer behind A Chorus Line, as well as Johnny Carson's stepson, according to The New York Times. Columnist Maureen Dowd didn't name the stepson and the book isn't out for another 10 days. But Carson only had one stepson - Joe Holland - who died of AIDS in 1994. Diller's other lover Michael Bennett was also killed by the disease in 1987 aged just 44. Diller - a former Paramount boss - says he knew he was gay from the age of 11. But his older brother was a drug addict and he says he did not want to inflict the shame of two 'broken' children on his parents. And, at the time, the lifestyle choice could have ended his career, telling the outlet that it was 'better to be called a failure than a fairy.' However, that didn't stop Hollywood from nearly outing him over the years. In 1974, he caught wind that People was planning on writing a 'mean and homophobic' piece on him. But when it came out, it mainly criticizing his business acumen, leaving the New Yorker relieved at the time. Twenty years later, while he was working at QVC and was trying to acquire Paramount, a rumor about him having AIDS began circulating. When a Times reporter contacted him to ask him about it, he said he was shocked and told the reporter he was fine. His friend, Michael Eisner, outed him to Disney executives in 1995, writing in an internal board memo that 'the fact that he is homosexual should have no weight' when considering him for the role of CEO of the company, The Times reported. It doomed his chances of getting the job, the publication said. And throughout his marriage to von Furstenberg, they lived separately - him in the Carlyle hotel on the Upper East Side, her above her business in the Meatpacking District. The first time he met the 'deliriously glamorous' fashion queen von Furstenberg at a super-smart Manhattan dinner party in 1974, she'd rudely brushed the reserved movie man aside to talk to someone else. As Diller describes it, he was an outsider in her snooty world: 'I was standing alone next to the fireplace feeling I did not belong in this group when "Prince" Egon von Furstenberg [Diane's first husband] walked up to me and said, "Your pants are too short."' But when he and Diane met again a year later at another fabulous soiree, she was suddenly all over him. 'I was instantly bathed in such attention and cozy warmth I couldn't believe it was the same woman I'd been dismissed by a year earlier,' he recalled. Later… 'We stood at the door, and I said, "I want to call you," and she said, "I want you to."' But overall, Diller is ready to tell the truth after all these years in his upcoming book. 'I wanted to tell the story, and I knew if I told the story, I had to tell the truth,' he told The Times. Diller says he knows most people had guesses his sexuality long before he came out and joked that he was in a brightly-lit, glass closet prior to coming out. He said not doing so helped him achieve incredible career success - partly because he believes all his anxiety was centered around being outed, which meant he was a decisive and fearless leader. But Diller says he's also ashamed he didn't come out sooner and wishes he could have served as a role model for gays of his generation who felt ashamed of their sexuality.
New York Times
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Barry Diller's Moment of Truth
Barry Diller has only just started his book tour, but he's already trying to sneak away. 'I'm shortening the tour part,' the 83-year-old mogul said recently in his sonorous baritone, the 'Killer Diller' voice that intimidated and intrigued Hollywood for more than half a century. 'I am not up for interrogation on aspects of my personal life.' As we sat on cappuccino-colored couches in his gorgeous Art Nouveau aerie in the Carlyle hotel, I reminded Diller about the bewitchingly candid first paragraph of his bildungsroman, 'Who Knew': The household I grew up in was perfectly dysfunctional. My parents separated often and came a day short of divorce several times before I was 10; my brother was a drug addict by age 13; and I was a sexually confused holder of secrets from the age of 11. And there it was, Hollywood's worst-kept secret spilled: Barry Diller is gay. Or rather, bisexual — or bi with Di, since, as he writes, 'While there have been a good many men in my life from the age of 16, there has only ever been one woman.' The sultry Princess of Wrap, Diane von Furstenberg, swept him away back in the Studio 54 days. She's proud of being the first woman he ever slept with, in a torrid romance that later unfurled into a long, happy, sexually liberated marriage. Von Furstenberg and Diller's friends are watching, wide-eyed, as Diller talks publicly for the first time about his unorthodox private life. The gruff, point-blank executive is known, as the Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos said, as 'one of the very few who doesn't care what people think in a town full of people who do care.' That is true in business. But for most of his lifetime, Diller did care about what people thought of his sexual orientation. 'I wanted to tell the story,' he said about his alienated childhood and dazzling career. 'And I knew if I told the story, I had to tell the truth.' That doesn't make it easier. He's kept his private life shrouded for so long, it's hard now to rip off that shroud. Even though he early on created what he calls his own 'Bill of Rights,' where he would not tell many people in his business world that he was gay but would also not pretend to be heterosexual and act like 'one of the boys,' he now says he was just 'chicken.' 'So many of us at that time were in this exiled state, so stunted in the way we lived,' he writes. 'Consider if you can what such a daily drip of that kind of dysfunctional life does to one's sense of self.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
