by I have decided to shun Jerry Seinfeld and his stolen sycophant wife. He has a new bee movie coming out soon and I’m not going to see it because
I have come to believe Jerry is not a good person, he is morally corrupt, and he lacks a social understanding of ethical behavior in context. Jerry Seinfeld has become, for me, “the Barry Bonds of comedy” by denying the obvious to protect the ego. Here’s why.
To understand the comedian, we need to investigate the man. Sure, Jerry is funny and entertaining on stage, but at home, in the stillness of the night, he and we, must realize silliness cannot afford the luxury of riches that plow fallow fields.
Let’s start with Jerry’s first open mocking of morality and propriety as a public person with his wrongful wooing of the 17-year-old beautiful Jewish Princess prize Shoshanna Lonstein. He is 20 years older than she and he dominated her life and recklessly stole the comity of her youth. What sort of man chooses to date a such a young soul?
Not a man we should admire or financially support with our valuable entertainment dollars. Here is the stunning Shoshanna as she is and as she was.
Then Jerry stole Jessica Sklar — the new wife of Eric Nederlander — shortly after their honeymoon:
Mr. Nederlander, now 39, had a good reason for hesitating to start a relationship under the scrutiny of their housemates. At the time he was recovering from the very public implosion of his first marriage, in 1998, to Jessica Sklar.
When Ms. Sklar left him shortly after their honeymoon for the higher profile Jerry Seinfeld, Mr. Nederlander, whose family owns a collection of Broadway theaters, found himself in the cross hairs of the gossip columnists.
What kind of man wants to steal the wife of another man? Not a man I choose to admire or support. I realize one cannot steal the wife of another man without the willing participation of the thefted woman — and it just goes to prove Jerry’s new wife, Jessica Sklar, was money hungry and a “star whore” and she relentlessly played into the stereotype of the money-grubbing gold-digger giving up one man’s riches for the never-ending wealth of another.
Mr. Nederlander even threatened to sue Jerry for “alienation of affection” for the theft of his wife and that was the right moral thought for the immoral impetus.
Then Jerry bought a parking garage to house the excesses of his public life — is that sort of in-your-face purchasing power well-spent?
How many cars does one man need? Does Seinfeld believe or care how this sort of vapid excess plays with a public that adores the funny but hates the haughty?
Semi-retired television actor Jerry Seinfeld is spending nearly $1.5 million on prime Manhattan real estate. But it isn’t for himself; it’s for his cars. Nearly two years ago he bought a building near his home on Central Park West for about $1 million. And he had planned to spend another $500,000 renovating it to meet the needs of his Porsche collection.
The garage (which is large enough to fit 20 cars) was reportedly expected to include a cushy 844-square-foot office, kitchenette and a bathroom and shower. Two years later, after delays and permit problems, drilling finally started this week, according to published reports. And neighbors are already complaining.
Next, Jessica and Jerry bought Billy Joel’s Long Island home for $32 million USD and promptly tore down 85% of the home because they didn’t like it.
The most recent Seinfeld/Sklar debacle is one of a more ominous tone: Allegations of plagiarism are wafting in and around the Seinfeld estates and it all started when the sycophant Mrs. Seinfeld appeared on Oprah to shill her new cookbook:
Jessica Seinfeld appeared on Oprah last week to promote her cookbook “Deceptively Delicious” and one week later it is a national best-seller. Today, her husband Jerry is in the interview seat to promote his upcoming animated feature “Bee Movie,” in which Oprah voices a judge.
With Jessica in the front row, Oprah, walnut-sized diamonds dripping from her ears, told the audience what Jessica had sent to her instead of a note thanking her for last week’s appearance. Shoes. Jessica sent Oprah 21 pairs of shoes. From the shot that goes across the screen, the majority were Christian Louboutin kicks, which retail for $800-$1200 a pair. Just a $16,000-$20,000 thank you, from one multi-millionaire couple to their billionaire friend.
I’m sure Oprah is so poor she needed Jessica Sklar-Nederlander-Seinfeld to buy her 21 pairs of shoes worth twenty grand.
Where is the reasonableness in the behavior? Now we move into “The Realm of the Really Interesting” as the New York Times reported last week that bits of Mrs. Seinfeld’s new cookbook may have been pulled from a previously published book:
But a number of readers posting on Amazon.com and Oprah.com and other Web sites have pointed out some similarities between Ms. Seinfeld’s book, which was published this month by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins, and another cookbook published by Running Press, an imprint of the Perseus Books Group, in April.
That book, “The Sneaky Chef” by Missy Chase Lapine, who is not a celebrity, also suggests that parents purée healthy foods like spinach and sweet potatoes and hide them in childhood favorites like macaroni and cheese or brownies. A week from Sunday it will be No. 9 on the paperback Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous list.
But wait!
It gets even more devious and interesting:
It turns out that Ms. Lapine, a former publisher of Eating Well magazine, had submitted her 139-page proposal for “The Sneaky Chef,” complete with 42 recipes, to HarperCollins twice — once in February 2006 without an agent and again in May last year, the second time represented by an agent. Both times she was rejected. She landed a deal with Running Press in June 2006, the same month that Collins won an auction to publish Ms. Seinfeld’s book. …
Ms. Lapine’s publisher contacted HarperCollins this summer after an early brochure for “Deceptively Delicious” showed an illustration of a woman holding carrots behind her back, similar to a drawing on the cover of “The Sneaky Chef.” Collins changed its plans for the cover, although, Mr. Ross said, that could have been because “it just looked too awkward to have her holding a plate of brownies with one hand and carrots” in the other.
Mrs. Seinfeld’s retort against the accusations of plagiarism were expectedly cunning, curt and cutting:
In a telephone interview, Ms. Seinfeld said she had come up with the idea more than two years ago in her kitchen while puréeing butternut squash for her youngest son and cooking macaroni and cheese for her husband and two oldest children.
“I’ve been obsessed with this for the past two years,” said Ms. Seinfeld, who worked with a chef and a nutritionist on the book. “I don’t need to copy someone’s idea. I’ve got enough going on in my life.”
Well! We have been put in our place: Busy people don’t plagiarize! But Wait! It gets even more devious and interesting as Jerry interrupts the conversation by riding to his stolen wife’s rescue:
Mr. Seinfeld, who joined his wife on the phone, said, “Let’s be realistic — my wife isn’t in this for the money or the publicity.” He added, “I really don’t think we have another Watergate here.”
Ah! There we have it in creeping condescension: Jerry Seinfeld’s stolen wife isn’t “in this for money or the publicity.”
She’s alive to not just leave one rich man for a richer man — but to also buy houses and tear them down, and write books for profit — and to buy poor Oprah some new shoes. I can’t remember a more disingenuous defense in my lifetime except for the one provided by the alleged defendant herself:
“I can’t explain a coincidence like this,” Ms. Seinfeld said, “but I applaud it and I wish there were 10 more books like mine because I’m not in this for a competition, I’m in this to help families.”
Mrs. Seinfeld needs to learn there is no such thing as a coincidence and trying to push away charges of plagiarism by accusing the accuser and pretending your book isn’t imitative — and then setting yourself up as a superior person because you support family values — sheepishly belies the facts of your life as you ran from the arms of your husband on your honeymoon and into the moneyed clutches of Jerry Seinfeld.
That pernicious, dramatic, behavior, Ms. Sklar-Nederlander-Seinfeld, is called “an irrevocable, revelatory, habit of action.” We get it. Now you know why I’m done with Jerry Seinfeld and his stolen sycophant wife.
I’ve had enough of duplicitous stars that pretend, for profit, to be ordinary folk while mocking common morality with money and fame and an attitude of living that claims the laws of the real world do not implicitly apply to them and that includes wholesome human decency.
Good for you for highlighting such despicable behavior – money, greed and fame do nasty things to people.
I hope a lot of people who read this will now go out and buy Ms. Lapine’s book and avoid Jerry Seinfeld like the plague.
Hi Nicola!
It was sort of hard to write this article today because “Seinfeld” is such a warm television touchstone for me. We moved to New York just as the show was starting and we lived right across the street from Tom’s Diner — so the Seinfeld film crews were sort of the common landscape for many years:
http://urbansemiotic.com/2005/11/28/26-cornelia-street/
But you cannot divide the man from the behavior and this latest book flap burned inside me since reading about it last week and the flip responses from the Seinfelds seemed odd and perfunctory in a nasty way.
Then I started reflecting back on their previous wants and behaviors and recognized a pattern of disappointing behavior that took root as this article.
I agree the way to win this moral fight is to vote for Ms. Lapine’s book with our pocketbooks and to shun the future efforts of the Seinfelds.
I always liked Jerry. These facts make me wonder.
Hi Anne —
Should we question our sacred cows?
Or do we allow them to slaughter our morality for their own entertainment value?
We should always question. I’m just disappointed I thought I knew him better.
Right, Anne. We need to always be vigilant and wondering about those we choose to admire. Being rich and having the power to make people laugh shouldn’t be an inoculation against immorality.
I agree. My picture is giant.
We love giant avatars, Anne! This is a semiotic blog and we love the image! 😀
Avatars look best big here at 128×128 in .PNG format.
It is always a shame when things we have grown up with or shared parts of our lives with let us down.
We loose a part of ourselves with them.
David,
The killer for me was when Seinfeld abuses an ancient rhetorical device, of rubbishing the issue in question by facetiously comparing it with a much bigger and completely irrelevant crime from the past. It’s disingenuous to say the least. It’s like Bush brushing aside a question about war-crimes in Iraq with – “I really don’t think we have another Holocaust here.” (why do i get the feeling that he’s done that already?)
That’s a prescient comment, Nicola. We often do lose our innocence as we grow older and the touchstones of our childhood are sometimes shattered in that reality.
I was was never a Paul Rubens fan, but those who loved Pee-wee were shocked that the actor had been found openly masturbating in a dirty movies theatre:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000607/bio
He never really recovered from the scandal or the cancellation of his CBS children’s television show.
That’s excellent analysis, Dananjay, thank you!
You’re right that’s the old trick of the mentally misbegotten — “What I did is no worse than what that person over there did…” and the comparison between behaviors is so far-fetched that it makes one wonder about the alleged genius of the one doing the pointing away.
Here’s the blog for the ORIGINAL Sneaky Chef:
http://www.thesneakychef.com/blog/?p=67
Here is Missy Chase Lapine’s author website:
http://www.thesneakychef.com/bio.php
David,
the consolation of course is that this may actually help sell more of miss lapine’s book than it would have otherwise.
Yes, Dananjay, that is my hope: People will stand up and do the right thing by Ms. Lapine by purchasing her book. I’m sure Jerry can buy enough of his wife’s book to kick it up the bestseller list without any help from the ordinary people.
Yes. All that extra space in his garage will come in handy. 🙂
Ha, Dananjay! 😀
To the Jerry Seinfeld Fans Who Hope to Post Comments:
1. Please read our Comments Policy first:
http://urbansemiotic.com/comments/
2. Insulting me or other commenters in this thread won’t get your comments published.
3. You need to make an interesting argument that applies to the topic today — espousing your love for Jerry is great for you there, but unnecessary here. We all know Jerry has great talent. The topic of the article today is not Jerry Seinfeld’s talent.
4. Accusing me and other commenters of being jealous of Jerry’s money isn’t going to get you in here. If you think about your accusation in the context of today’s article — it becomes obvious money does not make the man or comprehensibly form the soul — and if anything… it appears the richer you are the more prone you are to being monetarily onerous and morally corruptible. Why would anyone be jealous of those qualities? Money never leads to meaning or true significance.
5. We run strong Spam filtering software here and in email, so cursing and other impolite tones are immediately filtered into the trash and are never processed through human eyes.
Thank you.
UPDATE:
It will be interesting to see if Oprah goes after Mrs. Seinfeld for her alleged plagiarism as hard as she went after James Frey for his inventions:
http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200601/tows_past_20060126.jhtml
MSNBC reported this morning 15 of Mrs. Seinfeld’s recipes are “similar” to those published in the original book — and they also claimed Mrs. Seinfeld’s book had the word “Sneaky” in the title before it was removed.
Is Stealing Ever Good?
Is there ever a time when stealing is good? Yes, the inspired stealing of imagination should always be encouraged. There is no unoriginal theft left. Some call stealing inspiration, but if you see or experience something and then change or
Hi David,
I guess Jerry is suffering from ADD – 😀
Jokes apart, celebs find a great ego-gratification in changing partners, sometimes gossips/negative publicity helps them to be in the news too.
He might as well be suffering from mid/late life crisis too, who knows?
Love the ADD line, Katha! Very Seinfeldian of you! 😀
You’re right that by their very nature “stars” seek out fame and attention.
Dear David,
You are quite courageous for writing this article about Jerry Seinfeld and his history of unethical, excessive, and downright despicable behavior. In this case the sum is truly greater than its parts. Though the parts in truth aren’t pretty either.
I believe it is important to question the actions of the rich and famous who hold so much power and privilege in our society today.
Since I am a social worker working with the uninsured and chronically ill here in North Carolina, I am particularly appalled when I hear about the antics of a most beloved celebrity.
Troubling, to say the least.
As to his wife, though the book debate concerns pureed vegetables, it all seems very fishy to me. But quite frankly, Oprah has bigger fish to fry with sexual abuse going on in South Africa.
So who can blame the Big O for her silence?
Lastly, the story of Mrs. Seinfeld as “runaway wife” in her previous life doesn’t look good.
However, there is a photo of Mr. Nederlander and his new wife posted on nymag.com dated June 2007. And while I know it’s not nice to say, I would have dashed, myself!
I look forward to perusing the rest of your blog!
Hi dmtessi —
We are all a kaleidoscope of our experiences — and that view of us depends on the angle you choose to seek.
I was surprised it was so easy to research and pin down Jerry’s escapades. When you curry them all together to get one look at the man they don’t look so good in the overall and once those facts are set in place it’s hard to find another prism that doesn’t show some angle of those experiences.
Your work sounds divine and important.
I think Oprah should be fair in her expressed outrage. If she’s going to pound on one author for “making things up” she should certainly pound on another author that uses her stage to sell books that, at least at first taste, appear unappealingly similar in content to another work.
Mr. Nederlander was just fine for Jessica Sklar until Mr. Seinfeld came knocking. That disconnect between vow and promising and adoring is what bothers me most about the whole tawdry episode.
Thanks for your fine comment and I hope it is the start of many more!
I saw Seinfeld on Letterman tonight, then came across your blog. Seinfeld was knocking this poor other author, jabbing at her left and right, even making a sad joke about how three-named people were often murderers.
He has sunk to a new low for me. Talent aside, you’re absolutely right on. Knowing the background, I found his attack on this woman so unjustified since she wasn’t the one making the stink; others are. This poor woman has far less power, and far fewer platforms to defend herself. To have a husband come on like this and interject himself in something he has nothing to do with, makes it obvious they have something to ‘protect’.
Hey, but what do you expect from two people who are obviously narcassistic? Why would a woman leave a newly married husband to be with him? And him dating a 17 year old when he was in his 30-40s was just disgusting.
I applaud his success, but I find his character disgusting. And in the end it’s not how many cars you have, but how you act around those cars.
Welcome to Urban Semiotic, startanewlife!
I thank you for your excellent common sense and for your ability to see beyond the twinkle and into the man.
You said it oh, so right!
Lots of evidence that Jessica’s relationship with Nederlander wasn’t working and that she was on the way out of it when she met Jerry – who liked her right off the bat – and that relationship both helped her exit the relationship with Nederlander, which she was having trouble doing on her own (yeah, marrying a guy things already aren’t working out with, is never a good idea), and gave her the right kind of relationship right there in front of her – one that has lasted for 14 years. So, should she have stayed married to a guy she was unhappy with – to please you? So, should she have turned down Jerry or waited a year to marry him, because people like you would judge her on the surface of things? Ah, no, and no. A new relationship (romantic or just potentially romantic) helping give a person the confidence or sometimes just different perspective – to end a relationship that isn’t working – is pretty common-place. I for one, get completely what was happening with her. It’s unfortunate that on the surface of it, it could be and has for years been misconstrued – but it doesn’t make you right about Jessica. In fact, I’m confident that you – and people like you – are wrong about Jessica. I don’t know her, or Jerry, but I think you need to quit trying to paint her as someone who dumped her new husband for a bigger fish, ’cause I don’t think that was what was going on. I think she finally dumped the bad relationship and accepted the good one without delay. As simple as that – and a smart girl to recognize the right relationship when it appeared and to go for it without concerning herself too much with the little minds of little, mean-spirited people – like you.
Jessica? Is that you?
If you have any empirical proof for anything you claim, please provide it.
My article was filled with facts and outside source links.
If Jerry were never in the picture — would she have continued with her marriage to Nederlander or not?
Jerry Seinfeld is a jerk. “She was having problems with the relationship”….so she got married anyway because she wanted the Money. Seinfeld is just like that other funny guy Woody Allen, Allen had a long term sex relationship with his adopted daughter.
Never liked the guy or his ‘show about nothing.’ To me, he epitomizes the NY ‘attitude’ of snooty condescension, and he’s just not that funny. I think his stand up was better, but he just doesn’t hold my interest. This West coaster thinks that the NY-centric folks like Seinfeld are too full of themselves. The plagiarism thing is despicable as is their lame defense of it. Go away, jerks.
I appreciate your comment. Jerry is an enigma — he lucked into a fortune because of the excellent work of Larry David — not really because of anything he really did on his own.
well said! You forgot to mention that Jessica changed her name from Nina to Jessica.. It seems it was premeditated to me. She was sleeping with Jerry while she was married, and lied to him.. Additionally She’s 18 years younger than him, and i bet she’s going to dump Jerry for a younger man when Jerry turns 60 plus.
Thanks for the comment. Their relationship is still odd and confusing to me.
Really? And I suppose you were there. You know, sometimes two people are just not meant for each other, and two others are. Who are any of us to judge how the rest works itself out? And so big deal, she changed her name, wow, such small minds at work here.
You have come here and been rude to all of us for no reason. I’ll ask you the same question you just asked: Who are you to judge? We can think and feel as we wish based on the information we have.
You had a great opportunity to be interesting and effective in your Seinfeld defense and you were not effective.
I consider your article and its comments to be very ignorant, biased and lacking in the right information, unless, of course, you all somehow personally know Mr. Jerry Seinfeld and his wife, something I seriously doubt. So what if she changed her name? Many people do for a variety of reasons. It’s not like she did it to run from the law. What small minds! A judge agreed with her in her case over the book that the woman suing her was an opportunist and had no copyrights over the ideas involved. In several interviews, Jessica Seinfeld has stated that he had nothing to do with her leaving her then husband. Next time, please do your research before opening your mouth. And, who are you to decide who is the best mate for someone? Criticizing others does not make you superior. It also does not make you a very good person. You will not be patronizing the Seinfeld’s? (As if they care.) Well, I certainly will not be reading any more of your judgmental tripe.
Thank you for continuing the conversation on a six-year-old article.
Every comment counts!
If you want more information, just follow the links in the article. Everything stated is clearly supported by outside links and third parties.
Oh, wait, I see you only post the comments that support your nonsense. I even saw where you claim to have done “research.” I was only reading for a few minutes to find info that totally debunks this blog, so your research is either non-existent or just one-sided. She very clearly states that her relationship with her first husband was doomed from the start. Well, I guess your life is perfect, so perfect that you get to write this sort of thing about others, and I guess that their celebrity status helps to boost your readership, pluses for you. In my opinion, that makes you no better than the type of person you claim Seinfeld to be. I say we all shun you.
New commenters are placed in moderation before publication. All three of your comments were approved within 2.5 hours on a Sunday evening.
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I decided to publish your first comments just so the world could get a taste of a real Seinfeld fan.
Good luck to you.