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Andre Leon Talleys life in quarantine is not so different from the time before.
He refers to everyone by their full name each time so there can be no confusion.
He would love to hear from Anna Wintour, but she does not call.
Did you read the letter from Ralph Lauren in the back of my book?
No matter, hell read it aloud.
Tabloids have been eager for chum, calling the book catty and an extended rant against his former boss.
The people have eaten it up.
She tears down people to build herself up.
To Ralph Ruccis Instagram post applauding Talleys bravery and calling Wintour satanic: Its a screed.
S-C-R-E-E-D-I-S-H. With 12 exclamation points.
This is not a vengeful, bitchy tell-all, he says.
He adds that he had sent Wintour the first galley and asked if she wanted anything cut.
She only requested that private stories of her children be taken out and wished him well through official channels.
I will not criticize her, Talley continues.
My book is an epistle to everyone that I love.
Its a love letter to Anna Wintour.
I love her deeply.
He says love letter no less than a dozen times.
Talley remains on the masthead ofVogueas a contributing editor and receives a monthly pension from Conde Nast.
(Graydon Carter got the golden parachute, he says of the formerVanity Faireditor.
I deserve perhaps a better pension than I have.)
But what he craves is relevance.
The view from the top.
He was less fired than simply forgotten.
This is what has hurt me.
It makes me emotionally devastated because I couldve walked through the arctic floes forVogueand Anna Wintour.
In the book, Talley recounts being fed up with the lack of recognition.
I had done this great job but wasnt being treated properly or recognized for my efforts.
That was not necessarily referring to Anna Wintour.
Maybe that was referring toin general, he says.
Thats a very bad reading of that.
Talley is not a man of introspection, and one senses a danger in looking too closely.
He may describe pathological behavior, but he never calls it that.
An orange is not necessarily an orange.
Race looms uncomfortably in the periphery.
It is the racism from those he calls his friends that places him at a loss.
That profile does not exist in the universe in which I walk, Talley says.
This writer does not exist.
He got it wrong.
So she never said that?
Loulou was one of my greatest friends.
A dear loyal friend, he replies.
She could have said it, but for her, that was not racist to say what she said.
I will not repeat it.
But it did not come from a place of racism.
You went back trying to get the dark parts.
Keep going, keep going.
I just kept going, he says.
My career was important.
I kept getting up every day and doing what I had to do.
As for the future, Talley will carry forth: He plans to launch a fragrance called Moire Noir.
He would love to adapt his life for the screen.
Of course, he says.
But she never will.
She is no longer with the magazine.
