Everything You Think You Know About Jessica Seinfeld Is Pretty Much True
"There are three things people think they know about Jessica Seinfeld, the semipublic wife of the popular comedian," writes Allen Salkin, who, though he wrote an entire book about the fake holiday Festivus, boasts no "personal or professional relationship" with the Seinfelds. The three things are: A) she met Jerry at a gym shortly after marrying a different rich dude, B) she was accused of plagiarism, and C) she thanked Oprah for a recent appearance with 21 pairs of designer shoes. In order to dispel these 'myths,' Jessica has now "grudgingly" consented to be interviewed. She starts by slamming "journalists." "I understand that there's nothing more satisfying to a journalist than to take someone like me who appears to have had an easy life and appears to have now hit the jackpot," she tells Salkin. Actually! There's one thing that's more satisfying: Watching someone who's trying desperately to revamp her image totally dig herself a deeper hole.
"Journalists get a lot of pleasure making me or someone in a situation like mine seem like god-awful people," Jessica continues, but whether or not that's the case, it seems certain that one thing journalists do not love is being lied to. Which is what Jessica did after it was first reported that she was seeing Jerry while still technically married to Eric Nederlander, telling the Daily News that "there's no romantic interest whatsoever."
Here's how she excuses herself for that oopsie: "I had never been in a gossip column before, and I was completely unprepared for what was about to happen. I was a 26-year-old trying to gracefully correct a mistake in judgment."
She was only 26 years old!
She does get a little more traction from her effort to make it seem less like she merely upgraded from one rich dude to another—Allen says she characterized her relationship with Eric as "irretrievably broken" before she met Jerry, and her sister is quoted as saying that she came back from her honeymoon and moved in with their grandmother. Unfortunately, though, Eric's still not on board with his version of the story. "She's trying to make the past look like it never existed, so people don't look at her anymore as a bad person."
Oof. So can we still manage to spin that tacky gift to one of the richest women in the world? Well, for starters, "A spokeswoman for Ms. Seinfeld said the shoes' actual value was less than $10,000, not in the $20,000 neighborhood." Much better! And: "I guess I gave an over-the-top gift for an over-the-top move on Oprah's part for putting me on her show... Tell me, what would you get Oprah?"
Um, a $10,000 donation to one of the zillion deserving charities she supports?
