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Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill has been making headlines for the past two weeks. The book is about Farrow’s years-long investigation into Harvey Weinstein and how NBC shut down the story while Farrow worked there, which is how his Weinstein series ended up being published by The New Yorker. So, in addition to all of the information about Harvey Weinstein, Catch and Kill deals a lot with the toxic culture of NBC and how they were killing stories about predators while allowing Matt Lauer to harass and assault NBC employees. There’s a lot of insider-y sh-t but in general, I believe Ronan Farrow and I believe the atmosphere in and around NBC was probably the f–king worst. In the middle of all of that, there was this weird little story too: Gwen Stefani is pro-vaccine but she didn’t want people to know she was pro-vaccine?
MSNBC president Phil Griffin tried to pressure journalist Ronan Farrow into editing an interview with singer Gwen Stefani to tone down comments she made about vaccines, his new book alleges. Farrow spoke to the No Doubt frontwoman at the Global Citizen Festival in 2014 regarding the festival’s goal to promote vaccination amid the growing anti-vaxxer movement, according to the journalist’s new book “Catch and Kill.”
“I asked Gwen Stefani if she vaccinated her kids, and how she felt about anti-vaxxers,” he wrote. “She said she supported vaccines and advised people to talk to their doctors.”
But while editing the segment, he received a call from a producer at MSNBC, which aired the festival, claiming that Stefani’s camp reviewed the transcript and requested edits. Farrow — who demanded to know who leaked his transcript — refused to make the changes, which led to a meeting with Griffin, according to the book.
“It’s a puff piece! Come on. What the f—k?” Griffin allegedly grumbled. Farrow claimed that Griffin went on to insist that No Doubt would sever ties with the charity festival. “You know what happens if we don’t make these edits?” Griffin said. “Stefani’s threatening to pull out! That’s straight from her manager.”
Farrow said he eventually relented and aired a 5-minute clip of small talk with the singer. It wasn’t clear why Stefani’s team allegedly wanted the comments cut.
There’s no record of Gwen Stefani ever being an anti-Vaxxer or having anti-Vaxx sympathies. And by 2014, the anti-Vaxx movement had largely been discredited, so it wasn’t like Gwen would have been the sole voice out there saying “vaccinate your children.” So… did Gwen really demand the edit, or was it some weird corporate thing which ended up being blamed on Gwen? Did NBC decide to get into bed with anti-Vaxxers and Gwen was the fall guy? I have no idea. But it’s a really weird story.
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I can understand someone not wanting to open their parenting up for comment. People will go nuts over anything. Why invite it?
This makes sense to me. Also not wanting to bring the anti vaxx crazies down on her. I don’t read a lot of Gwen interviews but it seems to me she doesn’t talk about her kids much.
sorry, this makes no sense considering the festival goal to promote vaccination
I’m with you, pottymouth. if anyone came at me about anything I do, I’d consider their comments. Then I’d tell them to eff right off.
Flu season is coming so make a plan to get yourself and everyone you can vaccinated by late October/early November latest. Remember that the vaccine, even when not a perfect match, can prevent a case of flu from being fatal.
I had a appointment with my GYN last week and asked if she can give me one and I was fortunate that there was also a general clinic in the office to do it ( I would have had to treck clear across town to my GP to see if I could even get fit in for one as she is booked months in advance). Yes, vaccination is very important.
I ve never had a flu shot, but I got one last week. I’m taking my kids on Friday for theirs. The flu was very bad in Australia this year, and that is a predictor of how it’s going to be for the US this winter. There are reported cases already in my area.
I’ve never had one, and here we are, in the middle of Spring already Down Under. We’ve had a horrendous flu season. A few weeks ago we were already up to over 400 deaths, as opposed to less than 50 last year. It’s frightening,, in a country that had pretty much eradicated many contagious illnesses such as polio and measles, thanks to our previously high levels of vaccination. Sadly, the anti-vaxx movement is ggaining momentum here, too.
I got mine last week and my kids are getting theirs next week.
Got mine last week! My company does an on-site clinic every year, so it couldn’t be simpler.
We do a in clinic flu vaccine every year but the were out when we ordered them, so I am going to have to go to the drug store and get mine. I get one every year as my immune system is compromised, but I still get one anyway no matter what. I can’t believe that we have a shortage here in the US.
Got mine a couple weeks ago thanks to an article in Celebitchy on one of the Kardashians having a bad case of the flu already this year. Normally I don’t get one, but this put me in high gear to do so.
Great advice. Got mine today at my Kaiser walk-in flu shot clinic. Took 20 min and was actually painless, I couldn’t believe it. I’m a therapist so I’m exposed to a lot of people, they may not even know they’re sick when they see me. I’m encouraging all my clients to get their shot too!
I can 100% see her wanting to be sure that she was still appealing to the anti-vax crowd. I think the money and mainstream marketability is more important to her than standing up for a cause.
I think it was her team. Her team advises her about her appeal to the market. You can choose to promote your stance or not. At that level, the artists is sometimes not involved. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was probably told sometime soon after the request was made on her behalf. Either way, we won’t know until she addresses it. She seems pretty honest about her life, so we will get the answer soon, because it’s going to come up in interviews now.
Tony Kanal is a hard core Vegan activist and some groups he follows link the two. It may have been a No Doubt issue, not a Gwen issue.
I could see Gwen’s management getting involved so that she wouldn’t be in the conversation but I doubt she was directly involved. Likely a management or NBC thing.
Yeah, I agree. I think this was probably her manager being overly cautious asking for the edit rather than Gwen herself. If she didn’t people to know, she probably wouldn’t have commented when asked.
Haha, people can’t know I want my kids to not die! Not wanting my children to die is so gauche!
I don’t blame her. Who wants to publicly discuss the medical decisions they make for their children? Are we going to ask if her kids are circumcised or her thoughts on dental sealants? It’s not like she is super qualified to discuss the issue.
Uh, given the industry she’s in? I’m sure she’s surrounded by toxic idiots who don’t vaccinate their kids. She probably didn’t even want to begin to deal with it as part of her public profile. Save for her relationship with Blake, she’s actually pretty quiet about the kids.
Veronica, you aren’t lying. I’m sure that she is surrounded by a bunch of Gwyneth-loving, natural except-for-the-plastic-surgery-and-Botox Never-vaxers, men and women. There are a lot of people in the entertainment business without education who like to teach themselves science.
Wonder what school she sends her kids to. Some of the hip schools in LA can get very combative about vaccination, and parents yell at each other in the parking lot about it. Anti vaxxers are the worst, I can understand not wanting to invite them into your space, especially if there’s a chance you’ll see them on the school run.
Gwen’s kids go to a special school for dyslexia students, she struggles with it as well
I’m going to go ahead and assume the vax wars are serious at that school. Specialty schools can be so intense with the vax drama.
Maybe she criticized parents who don’t and then realized she has to socialize with a lot of them.
This is so random. But I am all for the privacy especially now that people are out to get one another for virtually anything. I do thought think that anivaxxers need to face some consequences because they actually put other people, let alone kids whose interests and well being should be parent’s priority, in danger. Yeah, and it does speak volumes about the societies we live in as people are afraid to admit they follow the science.