The former Vanity Fair editor on how #MeToo changed Hollywood, what Christopher Hitchens would make of the US today, and the value of a handkerchief
Graydon Carter, 75, is a Canadian-born journalist. He co-created the satirical magazine Spy, edited the New York Observer, and from 1992 until 2017 was the editor of Vanity Fair. In 2019 he founded Air Mail, an online newsletter for “worldly cosmopolitans”. His memoir, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, has just been published. He lives in New York with his third wife, not far from the Waverly Inn, the restaurant he co-owns, and has five children. Donald Trump has called him a “dummy” and “a real loser” who has “no talent and looks like shit”.
Before we talk magazines, as a Canadian-born non-fan of Trump, how’s the view over there?
Well, I think very highly of Mark Carney [the new Canadian prime minister]. He’s not going to take any grief. But the sad thing is that in two months, Trump has made [the US] the enemy of the world. If there was another 9/11 this week, I don’t think the world would rush to support us in the same way.
