10 NEWS People
Sorkin’s defiant idealism
Aaron Sorkin has an idealistic imagination,
said David Marchese in The New York Times
Magazine. He’s famous for writing TV shows
(The West Wing, The Newsroom), movies (A
Few Good Men, The American President), and
now a play (the hit Broadway adaptation of To
Kill a Mockingbird) that seem to exist in a liberal
fantasyland. Sorkin concedes that his work often
reflects his politics, most of all the White House drama The West
Wing, but he doesn’t think that diminishes the authenticity of his
characters. “By and large,” he says, “in popular culture our elected
leaders are portrayed either as Machiavellian or as dolts.” He cites
Netflix’s House of Cards, in which the president is a conniving
monster, and HBO’s Veep, in which the vice president is hilariously
in over her head. Why, he asks, can’t people in politics be depicted
as struggling human beings who want to make the world better? “I
like writing heroes without capes,” says Sorkin, 58. “It makes us
feel as though greatness is achievable. We’re not waiting for some-
body to appear out of the sky and save the world.” Some TV critics
speculate that The West Wing, which aired on NBC from 1999 to
2006, wouldn’t work in today’s climate of political cynicism. But
Sorkin rejects the idea that people aren’t in the mood for idealism.
“If anything,” he says, “I think that we’re thirsty for it.”
Britain’s rock-star artist
Damien Hirst may be an artist, but he likes to live like a rock
star, said Tom Hodgkinson in Idler Magazine (U.K.). Despite pos-
sibly being Britain’s wealthiest artist, he admits to having burned
through a fortune, thanks to his drinking- and drug-fueled lifestyle.
“I’d always made more money the next year than the year before,”
says Hirst, 54. “I felt like the machines were just giving me cash
for free. I’d fill my pockets with cash and go out for three days.
Then I’d go and get more. More drugs, more cash.” Just before the
financial crash in 2008, he auctioned a collection featuring a baby
calf, a tiger shark, a zebra, and other animals preserved in form-
aldehyde. It netted him about $200 million. Feeling that money
no longer had much meaning, Hirst let his expenses spiral out of
control. “You start by thinking you’ll get one assistant, and before
you know it you’ve got biographers, fire eaters, jugglers, minstrels,
and lyre players wandering around,” Hirst says. “They’re all saying
they aren’t being paid enough and need assistants. Then one night
you ask the lyre player to play for you and they say: ‘My lyre is all
scratched up and I did ask for a lyre technician, but you said not
yet.’” He’s worked to rein in the spending, which going sober made
easier. “It was unsustainable and it bites your arse,” he says.
Sheryl Sandberg has experienced sexism both in and out of the
workplace, said Eleanor Mills in The Times (U.K.). Her 2013 book
on how women can achieve professional success, Lean In, sold
4.2 million copies, and she tries to model unapologetic assertive-
ness as COO of Facebook. Sexism is “subtle and insidious, ” says
Sandberg, 50. “If a woman gives very specific instructions—which
I do all the time—then you are controlling and difficult. To be per-
ceived as a woman yelling, all you have to do is not say ‘please.’
For a man, he’d have to scream and throw things.” Recently, she’s
been feeling a similar form of judgment regarding her private life.
Her second husband, Dave Goldberg, suffered a fatal heart attack
five years ago, leaving behind two kids. Sandberg mourned, but
found that there was a strong public expectation that women
grieve for years. Online trolls shamed her for dating. “The world
doesn’t give you permission to be happy,” she says. She recently
got engaged to Tom Bernthal, a consulting executive, after they
jointly decided to get married. Marriage, she thinks, is yet another
area where women should lean in. “Why, in 2020,” she asks, “do
we still have women waiting for men to ask and not bringing up
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QCharlie Sheen vehemently denied
new allegations this week that he raped
co-star Corey Haim while making the
1986 film Lucas. Corey Feldman has
hinted for years that a major Hol-
lywood figure raped his fellow
child star and longtime friend,
causing Haim years of trauma
before he died from pneumonia
in 2010 at age 38. In Feldman’s
long-awaited documentary (My)
Truth: The Rape of Two Coreys,
he recounts a story he claims
Haim asked him to reveal before
his death. “He went into great
detail,” Feldman says. “He told
me, ‘Charlie bent me over inbetween two trailers...and raped me in broad
daylight.’” Sheen was 19 and Haim was 13
during filming. Several others featured in
the documentary claimed knowledge of the
assault. Sheen said that “these sick, twisted,
and outlandish allegations never occurred.”
QRep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) married her
former campaign consultant Timothy Mynett
last week, just months after both denied
their affair. “From partners in politics to
life partners, so blessed,” Omar, 38, wrote
on Instagram. Their love life is the basis of
a pending ethics complaint: Since Omar’s
2018 campaign, she’s paid about $586,
to Mynett’s firm and $7,000 to him person-
ally. He says it went toward legitimate work.
Omar, a Somalia-born Muslim who’s become
a lightning rod in Congress, filed for divorce
in October from her husband, citing an“irretrievable breakdown.” Mynett’s former
wife had filed for divorce two months earlier,
claiming he was “romantically involved”
with Omar, which both he and Omar denied.
Q Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones
was arrested in Austin last week and charged
with driving while intoxicated. Jones’ wife
called the sheriff’s department to report a
“family disturbance,” alleging Jones had
been “physical” earlier that day. On the way
to their home, a sheriff’s deputy saw Jones’
car and pulled him over. The host of the
InfoWars website, 46, had a “strong odor of
alcohol,” police said, and admitted to drink-
ing a bottle of sake with dinner. He recorded
a 0.079 blood alcohol content, 0.001 below
the legal limit, but failed field sobriety tests.
Although Jones appeared inebriated, police
said, he was “excited, talkative, and carefree.”