Why Our Monsters Talk to Michael Wolff

In his new book, the author of “Fire and Fury” continues his specialty: teasing out stories from men in power.

Sept. 12, 2021, 9:05 p.m. ET

It’s early 2019, a few months before Jeffrey Epstein will be arrested on sex charges, and he is sitting in the vast study of his New York mansion with a camera pointed at him as he practices for a big “60 Minutes” interview that would never take place.

The media trainer is a familiar figure: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign guru and onetime White House adviser. Mr. Bannon is both conducting the interview and coaching Mr. Epstein on the little things, telling him he will come across as stupid if he doesn’t look directly into the camera now and then, and advising him not to share his racist theories on how Black people learn. Mainly, Mr. Bannon tells Mr. Epstein, he should stick to his message, which is that he is not a pedophile. By the end, Mr. Bannon seems impressed.

“You’re engaging, you’re not threatening, you’re natural, you’re friendly, you don’t look at all creepy, you’re a sympathetic figure,” he says.

This explosive, previously unreported episode, linking a leader of the right with the now-dead disgraced financier, is tucked away at the end of a new book by Michael Wolff, “Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious, the Damned.” Mr. Bannon confirmed in a statement that he encouraged Mr. Epstein to speak to “60 Minutes” and said that he had recorded more than 15 hours of interviews with him.

He disputed Mr. Wolff’s characterization of the transcript, however. Mr. Bannon, who has made 15 documentaries, said that he “never media-trained anyone” and was recording the interview for a previously unannounced eight- to 10-hour documentary meant to illustrate how Mr. Epstein’s “perversions and depravity toward young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off his money and his influence.”

Mr. Bannon was a major character — and a great on-the-record source — for Mr. Wolff’s biggest success, “Fire and Fury,” his best-selling, no-holds-barred account of the Trump White House. To write about Mr. Bannon’s dealings with Mr. Epstein in the new book, Mr. Wolff relied on transcripts of what Mr. Epstein appears to believe are practice interviews. Where did he get the transcripts, not to mention a raft of other new details about the last days of Mr. Epstein’s life? Mr. Wolff won’t say, and his narrative method is no help either. As usual, he relies on an omniscient third-person narration in “Too Famous,” an approach that has for decades drawn criticism from reporters like me because it does not bother to include explanations of how the author came by his information.

I met with Mr. Wolff on Tuesday in Amagansett, on Long Island. He was dressed in white, and his white hair was cropped short. He welcomed me into his second home, a bright, airy place that he was able to buy, for $3 million, thanks to “Fire and Fury,” which sold more than five million copies, according to the publisher, allowing him to finally afford the lifestyle he had already been living.

Mr. Wolff, 68, has been at this since before I had a byline, infuriating his rivals by the access he gets, the stories he tells and the gleeful way he tells them. And he has been the subject of pieces like this one — scolding profiles of the journalist enfant terrible and New York media scenester — for decades.

He has managed to stay at the top of his game because of his undying interest and expertise in a particular subject: big, bad men. What Oprah Winfrey is to tearful celebrities and earnest royals, Mr. Wolff is to louche power players. The litany is astounding: Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Harvey Weinstein, Boris Johnson, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump. All appear in his new book, a collection of profiles, some previously published, some not.

Magnates seem to think Mr. Wolff gives them their best shot at a sympathetic portrait. He writes, in “Too Famous,” that Mr. Weinstein called him during his 2020 rape trial to propose a biography. “This book is worth millions,” Mr. Weinstein told him, according to Mr. Wolff. “You keep domestic, I’ll take foreign.” As for Mr. Epstein? “He wanted me to write something about him — a kind of a book — it wasn’t clear why,” Mr. Wolff told me.

Few women appear in “Too Famous.” Tina Brown, Arianna Huffington and Hillary Clinton are the exceptions. “These are the women, and there are not too many, who have done exactly what men would do,” he said. And Democrats rarely talk to him. “They don’t have a sense of play,” he said.

So what is it about Michael Wolff that has brought him so close to the egomaniacs of our time? If I had his confidence about getting into other people’s minds, I’d say it was because they see themselves reflected, maybe even envied, in his large eyes, which open a little wider when he wants you to keep talking....

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/business/media/michael-wolff-powerful-men.html