Poor Zsa Zsa Gabor mugged by VF

Abusing a frail old lady is usually unthinkable in polite society. But in the case of ancient starlet Zsa Zsa Gabor, the December issue of my second favourite magazine, Vanity Fair, throws caution to the wind and gives a very good impression of a hoodie happy slapping a passing pensioner. It sets on the old glitz-bag in a most thuggish way – probably because she didn’t have a savvy agent/PR to police the copy and threaten reprisals in the first place.

The assault appears to have been provoked by gossip writer Cindy Adams’ claim that Zsa Zsa is the prisoner of her very odd and much speculated about husband, Prince Frédéric von Anhalt. “This charge greatly upset von Anhalt, the aging German stud who counts himself as Zsa Zsa's 10th husband, although she claims to have married a mere eight”, reports the magazine. So in a damage limitation exercise he called in VF’s finest cosmetic prose and picture stylists for a summit with the actress – perhaps over-estimating her personal interest in the project. The Prince tells the writer that she fears being perceived as old, or as he puts it gallantly, “She doesn't believe she's 90 years old. She says she's 82." The “interview” is brief.

VF offers a geological treatise on determining his and her age and then later reminds us of the episode in which three women robbed him in his Rolls and left him naked and bound to the steering wheel. But there may be an alternative explanation: “Several internet gossip columnists suggested that von Anhalt frequents gay cruising areas and might have picked up the wrong person,” VF scrupulously reports. Before this Zsa Zsa is “poofed” into a powder-caked vision for the pics and then ritually slaughtered – it’s no way to treat a disabled person, is it?

It’s journalism at its worst and I just wish there was more of it. Click here for fun.