I Smell Pop Culture: A.J. Benza

a gold mine. We're looking for the gems. We're looking for the dirt. We're looking for the pop culture nuggets. We are going to explore them. We're gonna see what makes them tick and talk to the people behind these pop culture moments. Today we are talking to aj Benza. If you don't know who aj Benza is, you should. He is the king of gossip. He ran a gossip column in the New York Daily News, he was on the Gossip Show on E and most importantly, he was

mentioned in Gilmore Girls. That's why we're talking about today, Season two, episode two, Hammers and Nails. Okay, so here you go, close your eyes. I'm gonna set the scene for you. It's right at the beginning of the episode. The opening credits end. We're at Chilton. Louise, Paris, and Madeline are talking about their academic performance. Madeline says, maybe I won't go to college, and Louise says Princess Grace didn't go to college, to which Paris adds, thanks for

the history lesson aj Benza. Aj Benza isn't a typical historian, but he fits in right here on our journey through pop culture. He as I said before, he ran a gossip column in the New York Daily News. He had a show on E called Mysteries and Scandals that I loved growing up. Might I want to tell you get something really quick about my life. I don't know. You can skip ahead if you don't care about me, just skip ahead. But my dad is a He is a bodybuilder and he has a cop He's a very masculine person,

very tough guy. He's like so tall, this giant man. He loved the E Channel. He was like obsessed with it. He would watch the E Channel constantly when I was growing up. He's loved The Gossip Show in particular. He loved the Gossip Show. He would watch it constantly. And I tell him about all the stuff I'm doing at work and he it kind of doesn't really care. It's neither. You're norther there. I told him I was talking to

aj Benza. He lit up. He was so excited. But Aj Benza hosted a show called Mysteries and Scandals that I remember really liking when I was a little kid. Had this opening of someone making the title card out of like a ransom note. They was like, you know, take the rubber cement and glue the little cutout letters and say Mysteries and Scandals. I just thought that was cool. Aj bens has got this cool slick back hair. He's

walking down a foggy alley. There's seem coming up. He's next to an old Cadillac, and he's like, not every story on the dark side of Hollywood ends with a star in the sky. But this week we're going to talk about Jane Mansfield or something like that. So cool, and he's still doing it, baby. He has a podcast out now called Fame Is a Bitch. That is a phrase that he coined. Fame Ain't at a bitch is a specific line. But he has a podcast down now.

We still talks about celebrity gossip. We're going to talk to AJ Benza all about this. We're gonna find out how to keep a secret, how to find a secret. We're going to hear it all. He's coming up right after this stay with us. AJ Benza, thank you so much for doing this. We're so excited to talk to you today.

drug sex, I saw everything. So she hired me on the spot. I became her partner on the gossip column at the Daily News, and then she left the business and I got the column, and that was another six

years of me and my partner, Michael Lewiitis. And then came the E Gossip Show, which ran in tandem with the with the column, and and then after six or seven years, I got well, that wasn't far and I kind of I left because I got a TV opportunity to do mysteries and scandals at E. And it's funny because when I went out there, I still loved to write, but I knew so much gossip that I knew everybody in town, and they were kind of scared of me because I had written things about them in the past

that maybe they weren't too you know, happy about. But power is something in Hollywood that people tend to back away from. And I kind of had some at that point. So I got through the velvet rope, so to speak, and I started getting TV shows. And it's funny because the Gilmour Girls and my career in Hollywood kind of took off at the same time. I was really busy.

I knew it was a really tippy top show, and every girl I knew was watching it, including my nieces, you know, and my sister, and I had chances to see it in spots. But then when somebody told me I was mentioned on it, it blew me away. I had no idea that happened. So that was awesome.

hook me up with so ow and so? Can Can I talk to so and so? And that. I would get closer and closer to gossip but there's no question that when I was doing my job, I was both feared and accepted. But I also had a really good knack, especially in New York, to stay out as late as later than any other gossip columns tod out. You know, back then there were about fifteen gossip columns I think

in America. I swear there were none in maybe one in California, Nikki Fink, who was great, But that said, it was New York, and one person in La So I just I knew so many people that when I got there, I was very different. I wasn't gay, which a lot of gossip commns saw. I wasn't some fund me from England. I wasn't an older woman like a Smith or Cindy Adams. I was a young, dashing, may I say, you know, hot, temperate Sicilian kid in the streets,

dressing like the celebrities dating celebrities. I kind of fit in. And then if I stayed out as late as they did, which I always did, you know, loose lips sink ships. You just somebody told me a long time ago, an old journalist told me, listen with your eyes and here with you. No, listen with your eyes and see with your ears, all right, which is another way of saying, be really sneaky about what you hear. Don't let them hear,

don't let them see you hearing what they say. So once I heard some things and saw some things, there was no stopping me. I wasn't afraid of anybody getting angry me. I must have had maybe three or four situations across fifteen years. One time I got punched out by Chuck Siedo, the legendary Hell's Angel. Yeah that was a bad one, but that was all because I was misquoted in New York magazine article. But when it came to gossip items, I mean maybe Ben Stiller got pissed

or Matt Damon one, it's like nothing big. It was just like a sorry man, you know, I'm really sorry. I know, big deal, and they just walked away. You know. In fact, I think it helped me if i'd say, I mean, I did study acting, so I don't want to make out like I do nothing. But I got film work because some directors or producers like my appearances on television. They liked my personality. They thought, hey, he could play this role. And I began to get some

film roles like that, which satisfied my acting bug. So it was great. I mean, I had a really great time. I'm still doing it on my podcast. I'm still doing gossip to this day. It's been about thirty five years of me, you know, still talking about movie stars and models and all sorts of people.

of gossip every day, no excuses. That's pressure. The podcast is the first thing I've done since since the daily news, where I know I've got to show up every day at a certain time. My head's got to concoct, not concoct. I've got to come up with the gossip I want to talk about. But then again, I also want to I also weave in my history with those people I'm speaking about. If that's the case. Like this morning, I'm going, what's tomorrow show going to be? I'm trying to figure

it out. I'm looking out Justin Bieber's having trouble. Okay, that's I can start with that. Oh, Matt Perry had twenty seventh injections to a kedemy in the last three days. Was like, okay, wow, Tracktenberg died at thirty nine. Oh my god. These are all young actors who Wan's in

trouble too are dead. And then I happen to see the movie Lolita, the famous movies from sixty two a few nights ago, and the young actress in that was seventeen playing a fourteen year old, and later in life she said it was the worst thing she ever did. She developed a very bad case of bipolarism, and she said that that movie destroyed my life. So I said, okay, there's my show. Young actresses and actors just having all

the power. I think this is the greatest life in the world, but no one really takes care of them and looks over them.

He did things very differently. He wasn't a journalist. When you come out like I did and study journalism for four years in college and you get your you know, get a press pass to enter buildings or crime scenes, I feel like I'm more equipped to write about this stuff than just a kid who sits at a coffee shop with the laptop and makes fun of Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton. So it definitely changed. I think it really changed a lot. A when Princess Diana died, and

then when the Internet hit. When the Internet hit. Now we have about probably one point five gossip columnists in America, and believe me, most of them don't know anything about They're just taking other people's items and putting their opinion on them. There's no one they can call and source it out. They don't break stories. It's just a very different world.

See what people don't get about gossip. In my day, a lot of publicists, they were so significant because they represented celebrities and businesses and rocket roll bands. They call you because they have another little project at work where they represent a shoe store. I need a shoe store in your column. You got to say that you know so and so is buying a Paramanola bloncs. I'm like, okay, fine, but I need a story from you. So you want

that little shoe store story, give me something big. They call me back and I was like a you know, kind of a tough guy, and they were like, young girls, that's not good enough, goodbye boom. They would pad it. Then they go, okay, look please, okay. Naomi Campbell's having a big problem. She threw a phone and an assistant says it's gonna sue. No one's gonna have to pay her fifty thousands. So then I have these stories and Naomi Campbell never thinks her publicist did this. So a

lot of it is quid pro quote. It's not as much reporting and digging as you think as much as Hey, I gotta tell you something you know and can someone back that story? Yeah, I'll call so and so well he can back it up, and then you have your item, and that Adam could be a big story. I mean, look, I always tell people that the Michael Jackson story, the whole thing about sexual abuse of the kids. We had a story because that old this is how thing's developed.

An old man who represented the clothing Storre Manhattan, Bernie Bennett. He's long since gone. I think I have something you might like. Aja, what's that? He goes, how'd you like to hear about Michael Jackson taking a little teenage boy to Disney World and staying with them in the hotel. Are you kid? I said, Bernie, don't say another word. Meet me at this place for lunch. We go there. He finds out the story because his wife is friends

with a woman who's friends with the kid's mother. It's so convoluted, but it all works out, and this woman would tell Bernie's wife stories every night. So we had the story. We broke the kid's name, Jordan Chandler. We mentioned with hotel, Michael sticks to the kid. The parents sleep in a different room, a different wing and suddenly the whole story blows up. And you know that comes from a little an old publicist who ran, you know, a little business on the side, and it becomes the

biggest story in the world. So the more people you know, there's always somebody out that that's got the big story. So me, I always would meet as many people as I could, get drunk with them, shake hands to them, have a flame with them, whatever it took get me in there. Like when Ronald Reagan was getting ill, this is so bad, I had an opportunity to have an affair with his daughter Patty Davis. Wow, and I'm weighing the situation should I do it? And my editor Linda

Stacey said, you have to do it. Dig of the pig. We need information on her father. So of course I did it. You know, I mean, that wasn't too painful. But sometimes you're gonna do things you don't want to do, but that one I enjoy doing.

We have to do a lot of other things on the side, like hosting a poker show in Las Vegas, writing my third book. You know, if there's a film, I can work my podcast in any part. Like I'm in Chicago now, I live in La I go to Vegas a lot. Just take my laptop, my headset my mic, and I'm ready to go. It's just a hard gun. So I come back to it because I really enjoy it. And even my friends are like, why do you know so much about these people? Because I'm just a voracious reader.

I'm always interested in celebrity, and since I was there, I don't consider myself a celebrity, but I was in that pack. I ran with them, I did movies with them, Mel Gibson, sliced alone, Ron Howard, Julia Roberts. I was all around all of them, Bob, I've lived with Robert Evans and Beverly Hills for a while. Oh my god, So why not just, you know, expound on all those stories and legends and lore and the keep the good times rolling.