Dear Gossips,
One of the funniest celebrity stories I can remember from this year is a little inside baseball and it didn’t happen to me, it happened to Danielle Graham, the host of etalk. Danielle was assigned to cover the First They Killed My Father red carpet at TIFF. That’s Angelina Jolie. It was, as you can imagine, the biggest assignment of the night. Our responsibility as reporters at these events is to deliver back to our show a usable interview. That day, because we knew that the carpet was happening, and because Angelina is major celebrity, the first block of etalk was built around that story: Angelina in Toronto! Angelina takes over!
For Danielle, it was her job that night to make the first block of our show happen. And Danielle is excellent at her job. She’s one of the best entertainment presenters in the business. She can do more in a short 3 minute interview than most. This, below, is a great example. It’s Danielle interviewing Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill and making them laugh. Which, in this case, took a deft touch. You have to ask that question with a lot of finesse for them to pick up on the humour – and she did and they did. And it resulted in a great moment:
The night before, Angelina was fine with etalk on the red carpet for The Breadwinner. Traci Melchor was repping us for that premiere and Traci’s question was the only one Angelina answered. For some reason though… Angelina Jolie hated Danielle on sight, even though she’d never interviewed her before. At first, when Danielle gave me the rundown of what happened, I thought she might have been exaggerating. “Lainey, she hated me. She would not talk to me. I had to chase her down to get that soundbite. And then she hated me even more for it.” Then I saw the video. I saw Angelina’s face. Danielle was not telling lies.
So here’s how it went down: Danielle was posted up near the front of the media line. Angelina walked in, scanned the row, and blew past, not just once, but twice. Danielle ends up watching Angelina get interviewed by every other outlet, which means that she’d be the only reporter that night going home with jack sh-t. We all know each other on those carpets. We’ve all spent years standing next to each other on carpets, waiting hours for celebrities to arrive. It’s a collegial environment. So, one by one, once everyone had realised what had happened, Danielle’s peers started looking over at her with pity. They knew and they probably commiserated – because she was facing the possibility of having to go back to work empty-handed. F-ck that, right?
Danielle unplugs the cable, rushes to the back of the media line, and catches Angelina with a question she cannot not answer. The look Angelina Jolie gives Danielle is… I mean, we played it back over and over and over again at the station for days. It gets funnier and funnier because, holy sh-t, the disgust on her face. Like there is no other explanation for it. For whatever reason, Angelina was NOT feeling Danielle. You want to see? Watch:
Disgust!
Some people you just hate for no reason, on sight. Angelina Jolie hated Danielle on sight. It’s become a joke for us now about Danielle’s identity. Hi, this is my friend, Danielle Graham. And Angelina Jolie hates her. You want proof? Look at this face.
That face has become one of our highlight moments of the year. The full story behind that face, with even more detail and behind the scenes footage of Danielle showing her work from the raw viz, will be part of etalk’s annual Stars & Scandals special tonight at 9pm on CTV. Sometimes a celebrity hating you can be just as amazing as when they like you.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey