Anthony Weiner said the author of a profile that helped launch his political comeback was too easy on him.
In the latest issue of GQ, the failed New York City mayoral candidate said he expected the New York Times Magazine’s Jonathan Van Meter, the author of the April 2013 profile, to grill him about sexting.
“The problem was that the story was completely different from what we thought would be written,” Weiner said. “I thought there’d be thousands of questions about the sexting. But there wasn’t a lot of conversation about that. We had a guy [Van Meter] who wasn’t tough enough. We needed someone to just tear away at me. And not someone who would do something sympathetic…. He wrote an aftermath story, about two interesting people. Later, I thought, ‘We didn’t get this done. Of the hundred things we wanted to do, the one thing we wanted to accomplish was to get that out there!’”
Van Meter’s piece painted a portrait of a family that had moved beyond the turmoil that ended Weiner’s congressional career. A little more than two months after that piece ran, more revelations of Weiner’s sexting came to light, effectively derailing his mayoral bid. Van Meter said that he was hand-picked for the article because Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, was “comfortable” with him.
“No one should interview Anthony again. He is the least reliable narrator of his own story that I have ever encountered,” Van Meter told GQ. “And I’ve interviewed people in prison, who have chopped people up—prisoners who are charming and funny and smart. And well dressed.”
