Gunn's blazing: TV's favorite fashion guru Tim unleashes some serious dish

Gunn's blazing: TV's favorite fashion guru Tim unleashes some serious dish

By Jim Farber
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tim Gunn built his reputation on being sweet, supportive and scrupulously polite. So why, in his latest book, does he spend key pages flinging mud and gorging on gossip?

In the deceptively titled "Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work" (Gallery Books, $23.99), "Project Runway’s" nicest star lets loose on Anna Wintour, Isaac Mizrahi, Padma Lakshmi, Martha Stewart's daughter, Alexis, and some of the very designers he seemed to boost on the show.

In conversation, Gunn amplifies the charges. Of Anna Wintour's diva-like antics — including allegedly being carried down the stairs at one fashion event like an ancient queen — Gunn says, "It’s insane that people don’t call her out on the things she does. Is it fear? I was certainly afraid of her. When her office called me, I thought I’d have to go into the witness protection program."

On calling Mizrahi a spoiled snob in his book, he says, "Oh, please, I was so kind to him. I mean, I wouldn’t have the words to describe some of the more abhorrent behavior. He really is a terrible, terrible, terrible person."

In the book, Gunn calls Alexis Stewart "one of the angriest people I’ve ever met. [She] kept cursing under her breath in anticipation of her mother coming — 'goddamn bitch,' almost as if she had Tourette’s syndrome."

To the News, he explained, "I was so horrified by how she treated her mother in front of a lot of people. Good heavens, you’re an adult!"

Ironically, all these swipes emanate from a tome that’s ostensibly a guide to good behavior. Then again, it’s the snotty or condescending antics of both public and private figures that earns Gunn’s ire. So, in that way, the gripes fall in line with his theme.

Gunn, 57, says his book expanded from its initial premise as a straight etiquette guide because "I don’t like the word. It connotes fish forks and wine-glass placement. And it sounds elitist and stuffy."

Still, he did want to provide "an antidote to all the bad behavior that abounds around us. One of the themes of the book is 'Take the high road,' you’ll never regret it." In fact, "Golden Rules" does more than just promote a cool demeanor while punishing what he calls "potty-mouthed ruffians."

It also serves as Gunn’s autobiography — an unexpectedly revealing one.

"One thing I hear with frequency is that people don’t know very much about me," says Gunn. "They see me interacting with people and probing into their backgrounds because that gives me a context for who the designer is. But I haven’t opened up about myself. This book does that."


Gunn writes with surprising candor about his chilly relationship with his parents. He paints his mother as remote, his father as a homophobic brute. "My mother is truly, deathly ill right now," says Gunn. "She has congestive heart failure, kidney failure. If she’s still alive on Sept. 7 [the day before the book’s publication], she won’t be on the eighth."

Despite such statements, Gunn insists, "I love her dearly. But she’s a stone."

The author’s father served as an FBI special agent and ghost writer for the legendary chief of the organization, J. Edgar Hoover. In his book, Gunn speculates on Hoover’s alleged homosexuality and wonders about his dad’s own orientation. "You have to wonder about the identity of an individual who’s so blatantly homophobic," he says of his father. "Then there’s the whole Hoover FBI, with all these really good-looking men. It’s a little spooky like Hoover’s hand-picked club."

Gunn’s own sexuality comes in for hard scrutiny in the book as well. He says he didn’t come to terms with being gay until his 20s. "I knew what I wasn’t, but not what I was," he says.

Gunn also writes about a terrible relationship he had over 20 years ago, which ended with a betrayal so wounding, he has not risked a romantic involvement since. It’s been decades since he has had sex, he says, though he stresses he’s happy with the decision.

"I wanted to say that, whether you’re gay or straight, you can live a celibate life and be perfectly satisfied and happy." Gunn considers himself a gay role model, not only for his caring persona, but for his work on a show like "Project Runway," which accents talent and achievement over backbiting and table-flipping.

While many have felt the show lost much of its buzz when it moved from Bravo to Lifetime, Gunn prefers the earnest aura of the latter to the wild campiness of the former. It irked him that Bravo tried to make his own offshoot show, "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style," more confrontational.

"They were desperately looking for a co-host with whom I could have conflict and antipathy, and I said 'I won’t work with someone like that. I don’t want a battling diva.' But that’s what they wanted."

Gunn knows that his desire for something more supportive puts him out of step with much of the culture. He also knows that playing etiquette guide can make him sound like, in his words, "an old fart."

"But I am an old fart," he says. "You really do need to draw the line and set up boundaries."

Luckily, he has no shortage of hard and fun words for those he feels stray beyond them.

jfarber@nydailynews.com