Naomi Campbell's day began along familiar lines on Monday. The supermodel was chauffeur-driven in a black sports utility vehicle with tinted windows surrounded by her minders and bodyguards. Reaching the venue, she strolled languidly past a long line of press photographers baying "Naomi, over here," before entering the building and changing into her costume.
And then it all went skewy. Where were the assistants to help her put on her clothes? Where were the makeup artists, the lighting experts and the seamstresses? Where, for heaven's sake, was the Vogue editor Anna Wintour?
The only people in sight were a few bemused-looking garbage collectors, real ones that is, not actors dressed up as garbage collectors of the sort used to add spice to fashion shoots. Campbell, 36, had just begun a weeklong exercise in seeing how the other half lived, courtesy of the New York penal system.
She was the guest of the city's sanitation department and will spend each day this week, from 8am to 4pm, at its warehouse in downtown Manhattan on the edge of the East River.
The community service, along with a compulsory payment of US$185 and a two-day anger management course, was her punishment for throwing a mobile phone at her housemaid, Ana Scolavino, who needed four stitches to the head.
For a celebrity who has endured a barrage of bad press over the incident a year ago, Campbell pulled off her entry to the warehouse at Pier 36 with considerable aplomb. She wore six-inch (15cm) stiletto heels, brown leggings, a black coat and hat and sunglasses.
Inside the warehouse and out of the reach of press lenses, Campbell changed into her boots and donned the standard issue gloves, dust mask and fluorescent safety vest. Then she was assigned her tasks for the day, at which point the full weight of her penance must have become evident to her.
Albert Durrell, a sanitation department deputy chief, explained that she would be asked to sweep and mop the warehouse floor, the locker rooms and windows. And yes, he said, "if they are dirty she will be cleaning toilets."
The one thing she won't have to endure is the prolonged attention of the media. The judge at her sentencing agreed she could stay indoors all week.
"Let me make this clear," Durrell said. "This program has been in Manhattan for over a year now. We've had a couple of celebrities, but the bottom line is everyone is treated with respect and dignity and they have a job to do and they perform well at it. So far so good, we haven't had any problems."
If Campbell, or any of the three other offenders doing community service with her this week, failed to do what they were told, he added, they would be straight back in front of a judge.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS