Was Nikki Finke a genius or a monster? Friends and colleagues try to make sense of the entertainment industry’s brashest chronicler.
A famously reclusive blogger, Finke began writing LA Weekly’s “Deadline Hollywood” column in 2002 and made it essential reading for gossip and trade news. Four years later, she launched Deadline Hollywood Daily as a website. Finke’s sharp-elbow style earned her plenty of enemies in Hollywood. But the Long Island native’s regular drumbeat of exclusives proved her considerable influence with executives, agents and publicists. In 2009, Deadline Hollywood was purchased by Jay Penske, whose company, Penske Media, would later also acquire Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
Exclusives
Nikki Finke has severed ties with Deadline Hollywood, the website that she built into a must-read for the entertainment industry. Finke is leaving after repeated clashes with Jay Penske, who purchased the site in 2009 and also owns Variety.
Nikki Finke says she is set to leave the website she founded and start over again at NikkiFinke.com, announcing it on Twitter on Thursday. “I am building out NikkiFinke.com and will unveil it right after the new year,” she tweeted. “Can’t wait to report the real truth about Hollywood.”
Following Jay Penske’s purchase of competitor Variety, the founder of Deadline.com wants to buy back control of the website or start a new one. “Jay Penske shared my vision of what Deadline could be, [but] now circumstances have changed with the addition of Variety and the issue is whether this shared vision is still intact,” Finke says. “One of the most noble things Jay Penske could ever do would be to give me back Deadline.”
Deadline Hollywood founder Nikki Finke is famous for breaking news on the entertainment industry. But on Sunday night the hot Hollywood gossip was being reported not by her but about her. Speculation about Finke’s future at Deadline heated up after rival online publication The Wrap reported that Finke was dismissed from her position after clashing with Jay Penske, the chief executive of Penske Media Corp., which owns Deadline . However, soon after The Wrap posted its story, PMC put a statement on Deadline Hollywood calling the piece “libelous, false and defamatory.”
