E. Jean Carroll (Writer: Elle, Esquire, Outside, more)

SHE’S OUR TYPE—Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million. But not everybody remembers—because we are guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, y’all—that E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre that she carved out a name for herself in the boys club of New Journalism, writing juicy and iconic stories in the ‘70s and ‘80s for Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and more—and then finally leapt over to women’s magazines, where she held down the role of advice columnist at Elle for, wait for it, 27 years. Elle is where we intersected with E.Jean and where we first saw up close her boundless enthusiasm and generosity for womankind. We’ll also never forget sitting at one of the magazine’s annual fancypants dinners honoring Women in Hollywood—these are real star-studded affairs, folks—when Jennifer Aniston stood up to receive her award and started her speech with a shoutout to her beloved "Auntie E.,” whose advice she and millions of other American women had devoured, and lived by, for decades. Here’s the truth: The woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances imaginable really is and has always been that fearless, that unsinkable. It’s not a persona—it’s the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing, listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her. As E. Jean tells us herself in this interview, she does very, very little press. So we couldn’t be more honored that our friend and idol and The Spread’s most enthusiastic hype woman sat down after hours with us for this interview. We just hope we did her justice!—This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press. A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025