“In a relatively short period of time, David Zaslav has become perhaps the most hated man in Hollywood,” Bailey wrote.
A Zaslav spokesman complained to GQ about the story soon after it was published, according to people close to the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve confidences. By early afternoon on Monday, the magazine had made extensive edits to the story.
“I wrote what I felt was the story I was hired to write,” Bailey said. “When I was asked to rewrite it after publication, I declined. The rewrite that was done was not to my satisfaction, so I asked to have my name removed and was told that the option there was to pull the article entirely, and I was fine with that.”
In a statement, a GQ spokeswoman said the article “was not properly edited before going live.”
“After a revision was published, the writer of the piece asked to have their byline removed, at which point GQ decided to unpublish the piece in question,” the statement read. “GQ regrets the editorial error that [led] to a story being published before it was ready.”
A spokesman for Warner Bros. Discovery said it complained to GQ about the article because Bailey didn’t ask the company for comment before publishing.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Washington Post