Gawker

You know, when we posted yesterday's takedown of the style.com article "Gangs of New York: A Field Guide to 2008's Coolest Cliques," we thought it was weird that the piece named freaking Mary-Kate Olsen the "queen" of boho chic, and that it included a plug for her new book with style.com contributor Derek Blasberg. After all, she was the only celebrity mentioned and wasn't she the crowned potentate of dumpster dressing, like, four years ago? But it was less surprising after we learned that the unbylined article was actually written by Blasberg himself. Blasberg, if you recall, is the boycialite about town who first made his name as the guy who came between Proenza Schouler boys Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. His style.com cameo reads:

She's also co-writing a book with sister Ashley and frequent Style.com contributor Derek Blasberg, which will include interviews with fashion and art-world heavyweights like Christian Louboutin and Terry Richardson. It's a potentially cool project that could almost make us forget about that guest spot she did on 7th Heaven. Almost.

Now it's clear that Derek probably only mentioned her so he could throw in the bit about co-authoring the book. Hell, maybe that's why he wrote the thing in the first place? One of the socialites mentioned in the piece tells us that he's quite the manipulator on the New York socialite scene. Not that that's probably all that hard.

"He is basically the one who has tried to make this into cliques," the insider tells us. "His boyfriend Lyle Maltz and him try and direct social girls like Byrdie Bell about how to act and what to do — and try to control who is in and who is out. He scares the shit out of me and basically everyone else. We all call him assberg."

Assberg! Well, let's see how thrilled Mary-Kate is when she finds out that her co-writer is tooling on her 7th Heaven appearance. Assberg, indeed.

UPDATE: We're getting conflicting reports. Derek himself wrote in to deny authorship of the article. He even signed it "Derek Assberg." Never let it be said that the guy doesn't have a sense of humor. See his email and the orginal tip below.

From: derek blasberg
Date: Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 2:31 PM
Subject: CORRECTION
To: tips@gawker.com

Hi guys,

I was recently directed to another none-too-nice
posting on your site. For the sake of correction I
should mention that the Gangs of New York feature was
written by Evelyn Crowley, an associate editor at
style.com. Not me.

While I do contribute to style.com often, I probably
wouldn't use that site to "name drop myself into
cliques." Nice stretch though.

Yours, Derek Assberg

From: NAME REDACTED
Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Subject: hey
To: Gawker

off the record, you know that whole style.com piece was written by
derek blasberg. and he name drops himself in there too.
ugh. why does he never take the heat. its so annoying.