Love him or hate him, one sure way to make Internet newshound Matt Drudge's enemies list to suggest his younger days were chock full of hanging out in gay bars and even dousing some of the denizens in beer - as a forthcoming book by an MSNBC reporter alleges. But Drudge says the trouble with cybergossip Jeannette Walls's Dish doesn't stop with saying he was doing things in Washington a year after he'd moved to Los Angeles.
"Walls writes that back when I was in my 20s and living in Washington, D.C., I got kicked out of gay bar for dousing everyone with beer," Drudge writes in the Feb. 29 Drudge Report. Drudge "Which is all very exciting since I moved to Los Angeles when I was 19." Drudge also takes Walls to task for saying he "hung out with a crowd of promiscuous, openly gay men and dated several of them," which he says is nothing close to the truth.
"Regarding Jeannette Walls' exclusive that I got kicked out of gay bar for dousing everyone with beer," says Drudge, "not to mention my wild lifestyle of dating and mating, when I lived in D.C. in my 20's, even though I moved to Los Angeles when I was 19: All paternity claims should immediately be sent to my PO Box."
"I stand by everything in the book," Walls told the New York Daily News. Drudge also says MSNBC "made no attempt" to confirm the story with him and that Walls "can only add the item to the top of a growing pile of boo-boos."
Drudge alleges Walls, under pressure of a daily MSNBC Web column and a deadline for finishing her book, "cut…corners and (went) for the quick headline." He says Time editor Walter Isaacson refutes a Walls report that he'd become close to America Online chairman Steve Case since the Time Warner/AOL merger, enough to leave Time to head AOL editorial. "There is not even the tiniest shred of shreds of truth to it," Isaacson says of the Walls report.
"I haven't had one conversation with Steve Case since the merger -- other than as part of a group when he was interviewed by TIME the day of the announcement," Isaacson told the New York Post Feb. 27.
Drudge says Isaacson isn't the only media heavyweight wanting to tear down the Walls: publishing veteran Harry Evans was frosted by a Walls column describing Talk editor Tina Brown's "stalking" him with love letters - Evans says he and Brown corresponded routinely when both were abroad. According to Drudge, Evans has sent a legal letter to Walls's publisher about six factual errors, though Drudge didn't specify them.
"Jeannette dear, slow down and come up for some air," Drudge tweaks. "You are becoming a laughing stock. Even by MSNBC standards."
