Fashion Journalist André Leon Talley Details The Rise And Fall Of His Friendship With Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour: “She’s Not Capable Of Simple Human Kindness”

Former American editor-at-large of Vogue magazine André Leon Talley is calling out his old boss and friend Anna Wintour in his upcoming memoir, The Chiffon Trenches.

Wintour and Talley, both 70, are veterans of the iconic fashion magazine Vogue. Talley, who no longer works for the publication, will be releasing a memoir that details his career in the fashion business as well as some of the experiences he’s had with fellow fashion gurus. One of the relationships he opens up about is his former friendship with Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.

Through the years, Wintour’s name has become synonymous with cold, hard-to-please, and of course, being damn good at her job. The rumors about Wintour’s alleged uncharitable personality have also been loosely depicted in the hit film The Devil Wears Prada. Talley’s new memoir, The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir, suggests that the gossip surrounding Wintour’s notoriously icy reputation may be true.

In the book, Talley says he has “huge emotional and psychological scars” from his decades-long friendship with Wintour. He goes on to say that the fashion editor is “not capable of human kindness,” claiming that she told him that he was ‘too old, too overweight, too uncool’ for her. In some of the book’s passages, Talley writes that Wintour “is immune to anyone other than the powerful and famous people who populate the pages of Vogue.” In another, he says that “she has mercilessly made her best friends people who are the highest in their chosen fields.”

He adds that Wintour only wants to associate with people she deems as being on the ultimate level of success. “Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Mr. and Mrs. George Clooney are, to her, friends. I am no longer of value to her.” In 1983, Talley began working at Vogue as fashion news director. The Daily Mail reports that when Wintour left the U.S to become editor of British Vogue, Talley became style editor of Vanity Fair under Tina Brown. In 1988, Wintour hired him back at Vogue when she returned to America and became its editor. Wintour gave Talley her old job as creative director, making him the highest-ranking Black man in fashion journalism history.

Over time, the two’s relationship grew sour. In Spring 2018, Talley says he was expecting to prepare for his red carpet interviews for the Met Gala, but no one from Vogue had contacted him. To him, that was a sign that he was being pushed out. “This was clearly a stone-cold business decision. I had suddenly become too old, too overweight, too uncool, I imagined, for Anna Wintour.” He continued: “After decades of loyalty and friendships…Anna should have had the decency and kindness to call me or send me an email saying: ‘Andre, I think we have had a wonderful run with your interviews, but we are going to try something new. I would have accepted that…I understand; nothing lasts forever. Simple human kindness. No, she is not capable.”

Talley says he considered their friendship “officially over” when Wintour didn’t wish him a happy birthday in October, and when she didn’t respond to a birthday email, he sent her the next month. “Anna is so powerful and busy; she simply put me out of her existence. Now she treats me as a former employee, brief greetings, never anything more than perfunctory salutations,” said Talley. Now, Talley says he just hopes Wintour finds some way to apologize before he dies.

“My hope is that she will find a way to apologize before I die, or if I linger on incapacitated before I pass, she will show up at my bedside, with an extended hand clasped into mine and say: ‘I love you. You have no idea how much you have meant to me.’ Not a day goes by when I do not think of Anna Wintour.”