Carolyn Murphy is on the cover of the September BlackBook, but the accompanying profile by Vanity Fair's Nancy Jo Sales has been spiked. Look to Steve Garbarino's editor's letter for the reason. He said everything was going quite cordially until the magazine contacted IMG Models, Murphy's agency, for some follow-up reporting. "Suddenly Murphy, according to her IMG rep, was claiming that Sales had quoted her off the record," Garbarino wrote. "Our writer affirmed that the quotes in question were said while on the record." Two days before BlackBlook closed, however, Garbarino got a call from "a senior rep at IMG Models," citing a model release form signed by BlackBook that gave IMG the right to approve (or veto) any story before it went to press.
"This was news to me. I never had, nor ever would, sign away our journalistic freedom and independent judgment," reads the letter. "As it happens, one of our fashion department staffers had unknowingly signed off on this condition."
Declining to submit to the conditions, BlackBook killed the piece.
Rather than use a standard release, modeling agencies will often draft individual forms, in part because a model's existing endorsements and contracts can be threatened by an unguarded quote. The letter hints the disagreement over the piece lay in comments Murphy made about her ex-husband, who was arrested in January 2006 for extortion, and who had been trying to sell a sex tape from the couple's honeymoon. Garbarino declined further comment Thursday, and a spokesman for IMG said, "We regret that we were unable to come to a more agreeable conclusion with BlackBook on this issue, but we have seen the images and think that they are fabulous."
Go CAROLYN!
