She’s Our Type
A conversation with writer E. Jean Carroll (Elle, Esquire, Playboy, Outside, more).
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THIS EPISODE IS A SPECIAL COLLABORATION WITH OUR FRIENDS AT THE SPREAD AND IS MADE POSSIBLE BY OUR FRIENDS AT COMMERCIAL TYPE, MOUNTAIN GAZETTE, AND FREEPORT PRESS.
Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million.
But not everybody remembers—because we were guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, y’all—that E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre that she carved out a name for herself in the boys club of New Journalism, writing juicy and iconic stories in the seventies and eighties for Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and more—and then finally leapt over to women’s magazines, where she held down the role of advice columnist at Elle for, wait for it, 27 years. Elle is where we intersected with E. Jean and where we first saw up close her boundless enthusiasm and generosity for womankind.
We’ll also never forget sitting at one of the magazine’s annual fancypants dinners honoring Women in Hollywood—these are real star-studded affairs, folks—when Jennifer Aniston stood up to receive her award and started her speech with a shoutout to her beloved “Auntie E.,” whose advice she and millions of other American women had devoured, and lived by, for decades.
Here’s the truth: The woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances imaginable really is and has always been that fearless, that unsinkable. It’s not a persona—it’s the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing, listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her.
As E. Jean tells us herself in this interview, she does very, very little press. So we couldn’t be more honored that our friend and idol and the Spread’s most enthusiastic hype woman sat down after hours with us for this interview. We just hope we did her justice!
Maggie Bullock: All right, E. Jean.
E. Jean Carroll: Yes, my darling?
Maggie Bullock: You were a real hero to us and a lot of women long before we ever worked together at Elle. So it was wild for us when you became a hero to, like, all American women and we were like, “That’s our E. Jean!” We wanted to talk about your and celebrate your career as a magazine legend. We feel like that doesn’t get enough attention. Should we take it all the way back to Indiana?
E. Jean Carroll: Girl, you can take it as far back as you want, but I just also want to let everyone know that both of you are legends in the magazine world.
Maggie Bullock: Huh.
Rachel Baker: Huh.
E. Jean Carroll: Come on, if we talk a little bit about me, we’re gonna talk a little bit about you two, too, alright? Your listeners really got to know they got to be reminded.
Rachel Baker: Thank you. Yes, you are The Spread’s fairy godmother. So I guess that’s your job.
Maggie Bullock: Also the ultimate hype woman.
E. Jean Carroll: I love The Spread. I love The Spread.
Rachel Baker: E. Jean, do you do all of your interviews at night? Here we are, it’s 6:34, I’ve got a glass of wine. I don’t know what you guys are drinking. So is this how you do it? You do your media at night?
E. Jean Carroll: I don’t do media. I’ve been very low key. I can’t do anything. You know, we’re before the United States Court of Appeals. So really, just, no media. You are the only media I am doing. That’s it.
Maggie Bullock: I’ve wondered about that. So you just can’t really talk about the stuff that’s in the headlines until it gets through the court of appeals. Is that right?
E. Jean Carroll: Ordinarily, anybody can talk about something before the appeals court. But because he’s appealing, saying that I made up a story for “political reasons,” I can’t go running around flapping my jaws to prove his case.
Rachel Baker: Sure.
E. Jean Carroll: Also, the election is coming up and it’s just better to be quiet.
Rachel Baker: We get that, for sure.
Maggie Bullock: It’s a good time to talk about why we wanted to talk though.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Baker: Okay. So E. Jean, you grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You’re one of four siblings. We know that you were a big Jane Austen fan, but when did you know you wanted to be a professional writer, and what did that look like to you in the 1950s in Indiana?
E. Jean Carroll: I knew at the age of 12. That was it. A big explosion happened on our street where I grew up in Fort Wayne. Illsley Place. And my mother came tearing into the house, and all the neighbors followed her. She had this thing in her hand. She was so excited. And I said, “What is it? What is it?”
And my father had a letter printed in Time magazine. Oh, wow! I was like, Daddy! This is the best! And then he would fly up and down the street, “This extraordinary thing happened!”
And I thought, wow! That’s interesting. So I picked up Time magazine. And from there it was McCall’s and Ladies Home Journal and Esquire, Sports Illustrated. My parents got all the magazines. So I wanted to be from that moment a magazine writer. And I sent my first pitch letter at the age of 12 to the Sears & Roebuck catalog.
Rachel Baker: Do you remember what the letter to the editor was about?
Maggie Bullock: What was your dad’s letter about? And then what was your pitch about?
E. Jean Carroll: I do not remember what his letter was about.
Rachel Baker: I love that your parents were such magazine readers. And also, jumping way ahead, but how cool that you’re one of Time magazine’s most influential people this year. Pretty cool!
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, that’s so nice to think about. Too bad mom and dad can’t … well, wherever they are—
Rachel Baker: Sure. Wherever they are. That’s right. They’re thrilled.
Maggie Bullock: Yeah, that’s pretty big.
E. Jean Carroll: The pitch letter was that I wanted to write a story about a little girl who was cutting all the clothes out of the magazine and that every piece of clothing that I cut out became a real thing to wear. Isn’t that a cute thing? So, actually, that was about fashion, I guess!
Maggie Bullock: That’s so funny. And it’s true, though, that those catalogs back then were like fashion magazines in their own way. And also, you could get anything in the Sears catalog, right? Like a house.
E. Jean Carroll: You should know, Maggie. You wrote the book on J. Crew—you have talked a lot about catalogs. And it’s true. This is where middle America got our stuff—and of course my mother did subscribe to Bazaar and Vogue and Cosmopolitan—before it became Cosmopolitan. But we really did get ideas for underwear, cute house dresses—all that stuff, you got in the Sears Roebuck catalog.
Maggie Bullock: But, so if you knew so early on what you wanted to do—I think it was when you were 36, maybe, that you finally got published or got your big break?
E. Jean Carroll: I was filling the US mail with my pitches from the age of 12, and I was not accepted until I was 36.
Maggie Bullock: That’s crazy.
E. Jean Carroll: The crazy part is, why would I keep doing it?
Maggie Bullock: Yeah. So why did you? What was driving you?
E. Jean Carroll: I had a daffy belief in myself that I should be in magazines. I just kept doing it. It’s insane. But, it worked finally. Marilyn Johnson—you all know Marilyn Johnson, the writer—she was at Esquire and she picked me off the slush pile. Took me off the fucking slush pile. At Esquire back in the eighties, the slush pile literally went to the ceiling, not one thing to the ceiling, but three tiers.
Rachel Baker: Do you remember what that pitch was about, that first pitch from the slush pile?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, that was a quiz on Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
Maggie Bullock: And did they run it?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Rachel Baker: Wow! E. Jean, what did you do while you were scribbling—sending these pitches from when you were a teenager to 36—what were your day jobs during that time?
E. Jean Carroll: Well, I went to college and became a cheerleader. So right after I graduated from college, I had a cheerleading camp—formed my own company. Then one day, my mother was at home and a woman came and knocked on the door. She had a little black tablet and took a survey about what dishwashing thing she was using. My mother had her sit down, and she said, “How did you get this job? Who are you? This looks very interesting. Where are you from?”
And she was from Procter & Gamble. So then I interviewed at Procter & Gamble and became one of those people that went door to door. I flew all over the United States. This was in 1966! Listen to this, ladies, Rachel, Maggie—you knocked on the door and a woman answered the door! In Cleveland, in New York, in Houston.
Women were at home and they would answer the door! And then you’d go in and you’d either place a product, I placed Head & Shoulders, placed new sanitary napkins that came in an oval shape.
Rachel Baker: Oh, wow.
E. Jean Carroll: And then we come back six weeks later and we find out and take the research. And this is why Procter & Gamble products are so excellent. But the thing was to go into the house and start a conversation with a total stranger and then get into it.
Maggie Bullock: It’s great journalism.
Rachel Baker: You were reporting!
E. Jean Carroll: That was exactly it. I was learning how to have a conversation, and what was significant, and how interesting people were. Because no matter who answered that door, she was going to be fascinating. She was just going to be fascinating.
Some houses were a wreck. And there were very lackadaisical mothers, they’re like leaning back and the kids were great, and others really told their kids what to do every two seconds. “Don’t sit on that chair!” It was just amazing to me. And they’d complain about their husbands. Oh, it was fabulous. It was fabulous.
“I was filling the US mail with my pitches from the age of 12, and I was not accepted until I was 36!”
Maggie Bullock: This is something that I’ve always loved about you, E. Jean, is that you remember—I think a lot of writers would remember that as the “drudge work” that they did while they were waiting for it to happen, but you were delighted by it.
E. Jean Carroll: I loved it. I loved it.
Maggie Bullock: Yeah, it’s amazing. So you get plucked from the Esquire slush pile, and is it just, they see what you can do and then the assignments start flying, you’re off to the races? What happens next?
E. Jean Carroll: Maggie, Rachel, you know that all you need is your big toe in the door of one magazine. That’s all you need. You just need clips from somebody that somebody’s heard of, and [then] I can say, “I’m from Esquire.”
It opened up the doors. Just boom. That was it. That’s all I needed because I was so loaded with ideas. I just couldn’t stand it. I was raring to go. It was just that one little thing. And if Marilyn Johnson hadn’t [helped me], how much longer would it have been?
Maggie Bullock: I don’t know, but you would have kept trying.
E. Jean Carroll: That’s right!
Rachel Baker: In the 70s, and maybe early 80s, there were all these prestigious male writers— these swashbucklers who were moving to Montana—and so did you! What was that scene like, and what made you go out there?
E. Jean Carroll: I was married to Stephen Byers, who went on to become editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life. We went to Montana to become writers, and to live an adventurous life. And, by God, that’s what we did. [Tom] McGuane lived out there. David Quammen was our best friend.
Yeah. It was a man’s world, and I fuckin’ loved it. Loved it! I learned a lot and I lived a life. You know, living a life of adventure … it was great. And then I went to Manhattan to take Fran Lebowitz camping. And I looked around Manhattan, and I said, “Girl, this is it!” And I never went back to Montana.
Rachel Baker: Wow. So was that for Outside, that assignment?
E. Jean Carroll: That was for Outside. They put her on the cover. It was great.
Maggie Bullock: Yeah, I’ve seen that cover.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. She’s at Tompkins Square Park, with her little suitcase, her jeans, her loafers, her crew—remember how she always wore that crewneck sweater and the collar—and her camel hair overcoat, sitting there in a tent. We did take her camping. We did. We went up to the Pine Barrens. No, seriously. We took Fran camping. She actually went outdoors.
Maggie Bullock: Was that your scheme, to take her camping? That was your idea?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah.
Maggie Bullock: And so her cover was shot in New York City, but you’re saying you actually did. Did you sleep in a tent with her?
E. Jean Carroll: You fuckin’ bet I did! Do you know how I got her number?
Maggie Bullock: No. Tell us.
E. Jean Carroll: Well, first of all, I had no idea how to get ahold of a celebrity. Because I worshiped Fran Lebowitz—as everybody did at my age at that time—because she was the funniest woman who’d ever lived. So first I called her agent, Mort Janklow, for God’s sake. And he laughed at the phone.
I said, “I want to take Fran Lebowitz camping.”
He couldn’t stop laughing. And then he asked me how much I was going to pay her. And I said, “What? No!”
So then, Fran was in Vogue magazine. In a black and white photo, sitting on her bed, talking on the phone. And if you take a magnifying glass, and if you look at her phone really closely, you could read her phone number. And I called her.
Rachel Baker: Wow!
E. Jean Carroll: I said, “Hello, Ms. Leibowitz?
She said, “Yes?”
I said, “Hi. This is E. Jean Carroll. I’m from Outside magazine. I’d like to take you camping.”
She said, “Me?”
I said, “I would like to take you camping. It will be a blockbuster article!”
She said, “When?”
I said, “How about the 16th and 17th?”
She said, “All right.”
I couldn’t believe it. And George Butler, the great photographer, he went with me and we went camping.
Maggie Bullock: That’s insane! That you could actually pick her phone number out with a magnifying glass in Vogue is amazing.
Rachel Baker: We’ve been talking for, like, 10 minutes and I’ve said, “Wow!” so many times, I sound like I’m on an HGTV show or something.
Maggie Bullock: Rachel, my face hurts already.
Rachel Baker: Please forgive me.
Maggie Bullock: But we heard that when you moved to New York, you lived in an apartment with a dirt floor.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Maggie Bullock: What? Why?
Rachel Baker: Where was that, E. Jean?
E. Jean Carroll: 26th Street. Right off of Eighth Avenue. West 26th Street. Your listeners will not know who I’m going to mention—
Rachel Baker: —they can look it up—
E. Jean Carroll: I can give a reference. Richard Harris walked in there and said, “Who is your decorator?” Richard Harris, of course, was up for several Academy Awards and he was Dumbledore. Yeah, the Irish actor. See? You can’t say Richard Harris. Nobody knows. Camelot. He was in Camelot.
Maggie Bullock: The pay was so bad at Esquire that you couldn’t afford a floor? What’s happening?
E. Jean Carroll: There was a family of fortune tellers [living above me]. Hell, I would have paid them to [let me live there], I would have people come pick me up, and the fortune teller would tell me two days later, “No, he’s no good. No, he’s no good.” No, it was great, because it was $400 a month.
Maggie Bullock: $400 a month? That’s amazing.
E. Jean Carroll: That’s all I had. You know what freelance work is like. You don’t make a lot of money.
“I worshiped Fran Lebowitz—as everybody did at my age at that time—because she was the funniest woman who’d ever lived.”
Rachel Baker: We do. Back to your magazine reporting, it was like the thick of New Journalism, like you were doing back-to-back stunts. I was reading your collection, Female Difficulties last night, and I just couldn’t believe that you could come up with that many stunts in a row. What was your wildest reporting experience?
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, going to New Guinea. I love Playboy. I was the first female contributing editor to Playboy. They loved their writers. They took care of their writers. They actually paid me more than anybody else. And they would send me—the first story I sent in, I sent in my expense account. And they said, “E. Jean, you don’t have to stay at the Y.”
I’m like, “Oh really?”
No, they really took care of the writers. I mean, they had Truman Capote at the time, they had really major [talent]. It’s not understood today. Playboy had such an impact on the culture. You two were not born in the sixties when Hugh Hefner arrived and did that magazine—and The Spread will understand this—it was good for women because at least he took women seriously.
Maggie Bullock: As writers or as subjects?
E. Jean Carroll: As subjects! Really! They were naked—so what? At least they were doing something. He actually, I think, helped liberate women. He came at the right time. Women had been told they couldn’t do anything. Remember? Hugh Hefner said, “Yes, you can.” So that was great.
Rachel Baker: So what was that story exactly? What was the adventure that you went on?
E. Jean Carroll: My pitch was—I was dating at the time in New York City. And the men, they were such whiny, “smoke guys.” They were “smoke.” They weren’t there. There was no there there. And I was frustrated.
So I called up my editor there, Jim Morgan, and I said, “Goddamn it! I want a primitive man!” And I suggested New Guinea because there were literally white spaces on the map in New Guinea where nobody had ever been. So that’s where I went.
Rachel Baker: And what’d you find? Who’d you find?
E. Jean Carroll: Oh, I found Primitive Man. I walked in with a warrior who carried the pack and he was a big man who spoke English because the missionaries had been there and because he was the son of the chief.
And we walked into a village that had never been contacted before. Now when we contacted, I walked straight through and did not stay to, in any way, upset their way of life. But no, I found a primitive man.
Maggie Bullock: So you were, kind of, one of few, or maybe the only, woman getting these kinds of assignments. You said you were the first female contributing editor to Playboy, for example. And you said earlier it was a boys club and you loved it, right?
E. Jean Carroll: So did Nora Ephron though! Nora Ephron was right in there. She was a big deal at Esquire. Remember all the great stuff at Esquire she did?
Maggie Bullock: Yeah.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. And Germaine Greer. There were a lot of women out there in magazines, but we’ve all forgotten. See, that’s the thing. You know what? We forgot that somebody attacked the Capitol of the United States—we’ve all forgotten that. We forget things so rapidly. So to remember women who were big in magazines in the ’80s and ’90s? Gone.
Maggie Bullock: The magazines themselves are mostly gone. So what about, were you friends? Was there, like, a sense of camaraderie with the women who are gone?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, I never ran into them.
Rachel Baker: Because you were out, all out reporting.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, that was it. At Esquire we had Lynn Darling. Do you remember Lynn Darling?
Maggie Bullock: I know the name. I never met her.
E. Jean Carroll: And I know I’m forgetting somebody. Yeah, it was, God, it was really being alive. It was really being alive every day.
Rachel Baker: So were you coming up with all these ideas or were editors clamoring after you? “After you go to Papua New Guinea, can we please get you to go profile Dan Rather or profile Lyle Lovett or, do the Cowgirls, or ladies running with no clothes on for Outside?” You were lining things up.
E. Jean Carroll: You really did the research!
Rachel Baker: Some of it we couldn’t find. We were not successful on all fronts. And let me tell you, if you Google ‘Papua New Guinea,’ your article is not the first thing that comes up.
E. Jean Carroll: No. I remember one time Playboy—here’s their idea of an article: “Hey, E. Jean, we got a great piece for you to do.”
“What is it?”
“We hear that at certain college campuses, very pretty women with long hair—other women are sneaking in their dorm rooms and cutting their hair.”
Maggie Bullock: Did you write that?
E. Jean Carroll: I said, “That’s interesting. I think I don’t want to do that.”
Rachel Baker: These are, like, the calls you’re getting: “Do I have an idea for you, E. Jean!”
E. Jean Carroll: That would have been a good idea for somebody, I’m thinking maybe Katie J.M. Baker would do that. She would do it.
Rachel Baker: Oh, great one for her. I think it’s so interesting though, that they’re like, “These beautiful women are doing this.” So they call you, the most beautiful woman in journalism. I’m really curious—and I know Maggie is too—did the guy reporters and the guy editors take you seriously? And yes, they did, but your beauty factored into that in some way. How did that all work together, your beauty and the serious reporting?
E. Jean Carroll: Thank you very much, but I’m not really a “beauty.” I’ve never been a beauty. I was a handsome girl.
Rachel Baker: E. Jean, we have seen your pictures, okay? We know. I’ve seen you for years, but whatever, call it what you call it. We know what you looked like back then. We know what you look like now.
Maggie Bullock: I’ve seen you for years!
Rachel Baker: We’re looking at you now.
E. Jean Carroll: When the podcast runs, will it have video?
Maggie Bullock: No. Sadly, no. But also happily.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Thank God. Because I didn’t put on [any makeup]. It factored into it because it gave me confidence to just call up and walk in anywhere. On the Lyle Lovett thing, I went to one of his performances and reporters from all the magazines were there and there was a line to get to Lyle and I needed him because we were putting him on the cover.
You know what I did? I stood up and I walked across the fucking furniture, walked across the sofa, got to the next chair, walked across it and stood right in front of him. Now that is insane! But why not? What are they going to do?
Carroll in her Outside magazine days.
“Other people take risks—they do drugs, or they gamble, or they marry the wrong guy. My risks come with adventure. And I’d do anything for a story. I’d do anything for a story.”
Maggie Bullock: Do you want to tell the listeners what you asked Lyle Lovett about?
E. Jean Carroll: I know what you’re thinking.
Rachel Baker: We did do our homework.
Maggie Bullock: What did E. Jean ask Lyle Lovett? And how do you get around to that is really my question.
E. Jean Carroll: That was the thing. I had spent a lot of time with Lyle, but I kept hearing how magnificently endowed he was.
Maggie Bullock: There it is.
E. Jean Carroll: Julia Roberts had married him—and he’s really a great guy, Lyle Lovett. Smart, charming, warm, gentle. And I kept hearing it. So I had to say, “Lyle, I hear—people are saying—it’s so big, it needs its own liver.”
Maggie Bullock: How did he respond to that?
E. Jean Carroll: He poo-pooed it. He denied it. See, he's a smart guy. But I’m dying to know, aren’t you dying to know?
Maggie Bullock: I’ve just decided that I now know based on the rumor. So wait, we want to know about writing for SNL—we also looked this up—you wrote for SNL from 1986–87. And the cast that season, listeners, was Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon. And in that season, Dana Carvey debuted the Church Lady.
Rachel Baker: What?!
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, Dana Carvey was great.
Maggie Bullock: What was your experience like there?
E. Jean Carroll: Lorne [Michaels] didn’t like one single thing I wrote. He did not get it. He did not like it. He wasn’t happy. Al—the future Senator Al Franken—one time, after a read-through where one of my things bombed—read-through was terrible. If you don’t get laughs at read-through, you’re fucking dead. And I bombed again because nobody thought it was funny.
And Al actually wrote on the thing, “Why is this even being read?” He didn’t know I [was there]. He’s very political. He would never have said that right in front of me, but he said it right in front of me because he didn’t know I was standing behind him. It was rough. I thought I was writing very funny stuff, but nobody else did.
Rachel Baker: How did you get that job? Did you apply? Does somebody recommend you? Some scout just loved your work?
E. Jean Carroll: No, Lorne liked my stuff in Playboy. He thought it was hilarious and they had read Female Difficulties. And that is funny line after funny line, but it’s not joke lines, it’s an observational thing about women. It wasn’t going over so big. Now, if Tina Fey had been head writer, it would have done way better. But, that was sobering.
Rachel Baker: But you didn’t slow down. Okay, so The New York Times has called you “feminism’s answer to Hunter S. Thompson.” And you also wrote the book on Hunter S. Thompson in 1993, which was several years after SNL. What was reporting that like—speaking of ‘men.’
E. Jean Carroll: The greatest experience. Just the greatest. It was the one and only Hunter Thompson. He lived in a state of grace. I would be in the front seat with Hunter, we would be in “The Shark,” and he—I am not exaggerating—would go 130 miles an hour, in the dark, without his headlights.
Rachel Baker: E. Jean! That is terrifying! I don’t like this one bit.
E. Jean Carroll: I am not exaggerating. That’s the scary part. And he just—he was like Napoleon. Napoleon always said, “The bullet has not been made that can kill me.” And Hunter felt the same way. And he was right.
Maggie Bullock: So do you have a streak of that? I would have not been in a car going 130 miles an hour, but there is a real bravery to you. Were you made that way? Born that way?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Other people take risks, they do drugs, or they gamble, or they marry the wrong guy. My risks come with adventure. And I’d do anything for a story. I’d do anything for a story.
Rachel Baker: How long did you spend with Hunter S. Thompson?
E. Jean Carroll: We met at Elaine’s, and then he would come to New York and we’d hang out. He was so much fun. It was invention from the get-go. Okay, he calls me over to the hotel. He has a story due the next day at Rolling Stone, a cover story.
So he needs—he always needs somebody with him when he’s writing. He greets me in the door wearing lipstick. He’s asked me to come over to shave him, to shave his eyebrows off. That’s the reason he called. What is really going on is that he needs somebody to be there while he writes the story because Bob Wallace of Rolling Stone is going to be there the next morning and he needs pages.
He does write it. And I am there and he is getting it done. But in between we’re downstairs at the restaurant and he goes to the sugar bowls and picks up the little packages of sugar and lays them out in a pattern and he said, “The CIA is here. This is a message to them, all right? Do not change how I put those. They have to be out in that thing. That’s a code.”
Then we go back up in the room and write. That’s how he thought. Everything was an adventure with him. And of course he was a holy writer. His writing was great. That was the good side of Hunter. The bad side, the other side—terrible temper, et cetera, et cetera.
Maggie Bullock: So are we right, are we correct that in all this time you never wrote for women’s magazines?
E. Jean Carroll: No, I wrote for Playgirl.
Rachel Baker: Did you?
Maggie Bullock: Excellent example.
E. Jean Carroll: Playgirl—that was a breakthrough. They came out—right after Ms.—they came out for abortion rights, voting rights, female rights. They were on top, they were way out ahead. And they put these naked guys in. It was all a take on Playboy. So yeah, I wrote for them.
Rachel Baker: Gosh, what a fun time! There was so much happening—Ms. bursting on the scene, Playgirl.
E. Jean Carroll: Wait a minute. So much is happening now. Are you kidding? This is a fun time.
Maggie Bullock: Talk about that.
E. Jean Carroll: This is an amazing time. Events are happening so quickly that everybody is in such a frenzy. There’s never been a time like this. The planet is on fire. Our lives are being threatened. It’s an amazing time. To be alive during this time—really, we’re lucky. We’re very lucky. Because we can make a difference. We really can. You guys have kids—Jesus Christ!
Maggie Bullock: That’s what we say.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. It’s very exciting. Thrilling. Now, I am not reading the headlines. I’m in a good mood.
Rachel Baker: We’re in a good mood too because we get to hang out with you. You weren’t attracted to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar—to write for them. You were, like, in a different scene, right? Before you started doing your advice column for Elle in 1993, you were not in that kind of fashion [world].
E. Jean Carroll: I was really doing everything I loved at Esquire. And Amy Gross—Hail!—we had lunch and she said, “I have an idea. Why don’t you write an advice column?” I just was in heaven! I thought, Aaaaaaaaaah! Give it! Give it! Oh yes! I couldn’t imagine anything better. I was surprised I never thought of it. It just was such a great idea.
Maggie Bullock: Why? Because it seems like the opposite, like you’re this, you want to go on adventures. You like being in a boys’ club. You haven’t really been attracted to women’s magazines. What was it about writing an advice column that you’re like, “Yes, give me that.” It seems like a total departure. Why wasn’t it for you?
E. Jean Carroll: Because I grew up on my living room floor—my parents, when they came home from work, they had their cocktails, they opened their paper, they gave me the section. I was on the floor reading Ann Landers at night and Dear Abby in the morning. Every. Fucking. Day. They were so good. They were great. And that’s what I wanted to do.
Rachel Baker: The tone of “Ask E. Jean” was really different from those predecessors. I’d love for you to talk a little bit to the listeners who didn’t have the pleasure of reading “Ask E. Jean” for many years like we did. Tell them about your mission. What was your approach to helping women with this column?
E. Jean Carroll: They are reading me. And people who didn’t read me back then are reading me now, because the advice column was so copied—the style is so copied by all the other advice columns.That’s what Robbie Myers said. She said, “You’re still all reading E. Jean because she was copied.”
Rachel Baker: We’re also still reading you because we’re literally still reading you via Substack.
The cover of Carroll’s 1985 book Female Difficulties.
“I’d read the letter and I’d figure out what they wanted me to tell them to do. And I’d just tell them to go do it. Because they’re going to do it anyway, right?”
Maggie Bullock: Yeah. So the tone is there, but I think if you could tell the listener, like what was your mission. Because obviously you didn’t want to do the same old thing. It had to be your way, right? So what was your way?
E. Jean Carroll: I just told people to do it. Do it! Dude, go do it! I’d read the letter and I’d figure out what they wanted me to tell them to do and I’d just tell them to go do it. Because they’re going to do it anyway, right? They’re going to do it anyway, so I had to find a good reason.
But that was what it was. And I couldn’t stand when people came in with “Wha-wha-wha…” And I would yell at them. You remember those columns? I would yell, with exclamation points, “Do it!” It was the cheerleader part of me. So that was probably the difference. Really, I just yelled at people.
Rachel Baker: Yeah, you weren’t earnest at all. You were, like, aggressive and hilarious.
E. Jean Carroll: Robbie Myers would read that column and she’d say, “E. Jean you’ve got to give more backup to this answer. ‘Get rid of him’ does not help. E. Jean, you have to give her a reason.”
You’ve read some of these letters. You just, you want to strangle these people. You just want to strangle them. But they can’t see that, because they’re in the middle of a trauma. They cannot see it. We’ve all been there, where we can’t see anything in front of us.
Maggie Bullock: Do you have a favorite E. Jean success story?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Somebody needed advice on how to get this young man to ask her out—or ask her out for the third or fourth date. And I gave her the advice. And they got married and named their baby E. Jean!
Rachel Baker: That’s pretty good. Okay. So your column was such a smash hit that Ask E. Jean became a TV series on one of NBC’s sister networks. Did your life change at all? Going from the page to TV, like being a TV personality? Did that change your day-to-day life as a New Yorker?
E. Jean Carroll: It was fun because all the sales associates and all the department stores recognized me. They were about the only ones, but that was fine. And when I met Donald Trump out in front of Bergdorf’s, he said, “Oh, hey, you’re that advice lady.” It did affect my life in that way.
Maggie Bullock: You were more recognizable.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, and Roger Ailes was my boss. And Roger went on to found Fox News, which went on to make such a divide in this country that it made possible what happened. And here’s something even wilder. I adored Roger. He was great. He was a great boss. Lots of fun, and led people great.
Maggie Bullock: Let’s fast forward to 2019. And by this time, you’ve been writing “Ask E. Jean” for more than 20 years. Wait, is it 27 years?
E. Jean Carroll: 27 years. Yeah.
Maggie Bullock: Wow. That’s a lot of advice.
Rachel Baker: It’s a lot of advice.
Maggie Bullock: And that’s the year that you published your memoir, What Do We Need Men For? And so—as we’ve established, we really did our homework—and as we were preparing, we were really struck by the idea that this was a book in which you showed the underside and the real risk of being this swashbuckling woman in a men’s world. Because you revealed how poorly men had treated you over the course of your life, and these were famous men like Les Moonves and as we all know now, Donald Trump. You had never revealed these stories, right?
E. Jean Carroll: Never!
Maggie Bullock: So what made you—you had been so stoic about this. And as we’ve already established, you are so positive.You can find a positive in anything. Why did you decide to reveal this pain at that point?
E. Jean Carroll: I was never going to reveal it. Never. Because it would have shattered my reputation. I would have been fired. Roger Ailes would have fired me on the fucking spot. Nobody would have believed me. Nobody would have believed me. So there was no way.
That’s why I never came forward. And that’s why I swore to god I was never going to come forward. Lisa Birnbach swore to god she was never going to say it. Carol Martin. We just swore that it was never going to happen. That’s it, we moved on.
Then, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor of The New York Times—full-page headlines with Harvey Weinstein. And what happened? Women across the country rose up with one voice and started screaming their stories. And I thought, Wait a minute. I am a chicken. I’m such a fucking chicken.
So I decided, “Well, screw it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Yeah, okay.” So that’s what happened. #MeToo happened. Specifically, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey happened. That’s it. I saw it happening. We were all there. We saw the women come forward. And men lost jobs. It was amazing.
Rachel Baker: Before the book came out, an excerpt ran as a cover story of New York magazine and on the cover was a photo of you with the line, “This is what I was wearing 23 years ago when Donald Trump attacked me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.” E. Jean, what was it like being on the cover of that magazine, with that cover line, with it circulating? What was that like?
E. Jean Carroll: Amanda Demme took the photograph, and she met me as I was coming into the building, carrying the dress in a bag. And I was wearing no makeup. She looked at me, and she said, “That’s going to be the cover look. You’re not going to wear makeup for the cover.”
That, I understand. She said, “If you’re going to tell the truth, you’re not going to have makeup on. That’s it.” So it went on the cover with no makeup.
I was happy with the cover. But boy, the reverberations on how ugly I was never stopped, never. And for that reason—if I’d had lashes on and a hair piece, and all that, he would have reacted very differently. It had repercussions. That cover had major repercussions.
I looked my age. It was amazing. And you know what we can do with a cover. We know the makeup. I could have looked…. But no—no makeup. Telling the truth, you face the world and you just say it. So that’s what it had, an effect.
Maggie Bullock: That’s so interesting. So you looked so stunning—we’re not going to go deep on this—but you looked so stunning in court. And I wonder—was that a kind of armor for you? You looked beautiful.
E. Jean Carroll: Let’s thank Maggie and Rachel. I quote you in—I’m writing a memoir—and I quote you, Maggie, the line that you said, “You certainly have your signatures and your silhouettes, E. Jean.” I read that line.
The cover of Carroll’s 1993 biography of Hunter S. Thompson
“He lived in a state of grace. I would be in the front seat with Hunter and he—I am not exaggerating—would go 130 miles an hour, in the dark, without his headlights.”
Rachel Baker: Oh, I remember you saying that Maggie. That was great. That was on our big text chain when you were figuring out your looks.
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. And Vanessa Freidman for The New York Times, when she wrote about it, said that I was having a lot of help from my Elle friends. And I wrote her back and I said, “You’re right. My Elle girls.” And you’re all named in the book. It really helped me. It really helped me. You can’t work for 30 years with a fashion magazine and not be aware, but you had the words silhouette and signatures. Really.
Maggie Bullock: Honestly there was nothing we could do to help you. And so being able to help you in any superficial way was great, really great, for us.
E. Jean Carroll: But Maggie, that was way more important than you’re given credit for. When a woman walks into the court, what is she judged on? How she looks. And what she has on. Particularly in a sexual assault case—what she has on, what she looks like. It was essential. The body is always the center of a rape case. Always. The body is always the center. That’s it. So I am here to thank you for that.
Maggie Bullock: So everyone who’s listening has been following your legal battle. And we also all know that you were awarded nearly $90 million and that you have emerged a national hero.
E. Jean Carroll: It’s over 100 million now, with interest.
Maggie Bullock: So, you’ve told us all that you’ll use this money to help women, and we believe you. But, like, we actually want to know—how do you even go about thinking about how to do that job? Do you get consultants? What do you do to figure that out?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. We've set up a trust, and we have named Lisa Birnbach as head of the thing. I’m also going to be running it. But after my death, we’ve got all this planned out, line after line of what our aims are: to protect women’s reproductive rights, to make sure that women receive assistance when they want to become lawyers, to get scholarships. And so that is the formula.
Rachel Baker: So what’s next Auntie E.? You’re working on a memoir about all of this? About everything we’ve covered today, from Indiana till now?
E. Jean Carroll: No, just the two trials. But why don’t we consult about titles?
Rachel Baker: Okay, we’re ready.
E. Jean Carroll: Maggie, what did you call your J. Crew book?
Maggie Bullock: It was The Kingdom of Prep. And I’ll just say that it was tricky because it was run by women. And I would have loved to have found an alternative to “The Kingdom” because it wasn’t kings. But it was a strong title and we didn’t find an alternative.
E. Jean Carroll: How’d you know it was a strong title? It sold very well and a lot of people read it.
Maggie Bullock: That’s nice of you to say. It felt strong. I don’t know, everyone we negotiated with immediately liked it. And I think, I guess just instinctually it felt strong. I don’t know if I had a stronger reason than that.
E. Jean Carroll: That's the best reason. Instinct.
Maggie Bullock: But you’re looking for a memoir title?
E. Jean Carroll: Yeah, the subtitle is Memoir of a Trial. And I’m thinking, Not My Type as a title.
Maggie Bullock: Ooh. Yeah.
Rachel Baker: Heavy duty!
E. Jean Carroll: You like that?
Maggie Bullock: Very much.
Rachel Baker: It hits, yeah.
Maggie Bullock: It hits! Got me.
E. Jean Carroll: Okay, good. The other title is Whack Job.
Maggie Bullock: No. The first one. Obviously he’s not your type. I like reclaiming that.
Rachel Baker: I like reclaiming it too. I think that’s elegant and cool. There’s something cool about it.
E. Jean Carroll: Okay, I followed your advice before, ladies, as usual.
Maggie Bullock: Oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. Same time, same place, next week? I’ll see you there, girls.
E. Jean Carroll: And where are your children? Go get the children and let me see them.
Rachel Baker: Wait, so let’s say our, like, official goodbyes to E. Jean. And then we’ll go get the babies. E. Jean, thank you so much for doing this. We really had the time of our lives this evening. We’re so grateful. Thank you for being our fairy godmother and women everywhere’s fairy godmother. We love you. Thank you for that. Thank you. Magazine legend, E. Jane Carroll, everyone!
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