Will the celebrity site's tie-up with Endemol damage its credibility? Not a bit of it, says Holy Moly's founder
Holy Moly founder Jamie East likes gossip, so here's some about him. Did he a) offer his Twitter followers a live commentary while he had a vasectomy, b) shove a pie in the face of Robert Plant as the junior phantom flan flinger on Saturday morning kids' show Tiswas, or c) have a top five indie chart hit as singer with the Beekeepers?
Answer: all of the above.
The scourge of celebrity culture, Holy Moly is about to enter a new stage in its development after East sold 50% of the company to Big Brother producer Endemol UK last month. Plans include an imminent expansion of the website, new digital business ventures and the possible fulfilment of East's long-held ambition of a Holy Moly television show.
With around a million unique users a month, the site has come a long way since East founded it nine years ago on a laptop hidden under his desk at Sky. There have been highs ? including its scoop that Madonna was about to divorce Guy Ritchie ? and lows, most notably the five-figure payout to a British TV celebrity that almost prompted East to call it a day.
The Endemol deal also saw East formally reveal his identity (although he was unofficially "outed" some time ago). His "Mr Holy Moly" monicker added to the site's mystique ? he appeared on TV shows wearing a balaclava ? and helped when he bumped into celebrities at parties. "It was good fun being able to go to places and someone would tell you stuff and you're thinking, 'fuck me, just keep going,'" he says. "But not because you weren't held responsible for everything that went up on the site. Believe me, I was held very responsible."
East stories he'd gleaned from his years in the music industry to Popbitch before going it alone with Holy Moly in 2002. Heat magazine had revealed a largely untapped appetite for celebrity culture. But while Heat raised an eyebrow, Holy Moly ? like Popbitch ? applied a hobnail boot.
No holds barred
"It was proper no-holds-barred stuff in the early days," remembers East. "It was three or four years before the lawyers came knocking. I remember being at Sky and my work phone ringing and it was the PR for one of the biggest bands in the world. He said, 'Jamie, about that story you wrote an hour ago.' I was like 'how did you find me?' You either say 'it's not worth the hassle' and you give it up, or you start to take it more seriously as a business."
Now a more mainstream offering less likely to bother the (Endemol) lawyers, the new-look website will devote more space to film, music, gadgets and fashion. It will keep celebrity at its core, but public tastes have changed, reckons East. "I'm not entirely convinced people are as interested in celebrities as they were three or four years ago. I think people are utterly bored by them now. Take Cheryl Cole, arguably the biggest female star in the country, I don't actually think Cheryl Cole has many more interesting things to say. Is she or isn't she going to do the US X Factor? Come on, you can write that she is, and you can write that she isn't, but you can't keep doing it every other day."
Reality TV stars were once "gold" ? "You could meet them in a bar and ask them a question and they would spout the most incredible shit at you" ? but with the decline of Big Brother that bubble has burst too. As that has coincided with the rise of Twitter and Facebook, allowing the likes of Lily Allen and George Michael to talk directly to their fans, East says showbiz hacks have been caught in a "perfect storm".
"If George Michael knew a story was coming out, the chances are he would go on Twitter and talk about it and completely piss on their chips. And because of the intimate nature of Twitter, Doris from Wolverhampton behind the Tesco checkout feels he's telling her personally. That's a really powerful thing."
East is the son of former Sky Sports and Setanta executive Trevor East, and his brother Duncan is a senior director at Sky Sports. Less well known is his father's 70s stint alongside Chris Tarrant as a presenter on ITV's Saturday morning show Tiswas. Hence East's occasional appearances ("it was a birthday present") flinging flans.
East says his father is "great for advice ... I can be quite hot-headed and reactionary and I want to go steaming in there shouting at people and accepting or turning down deals immediately. He tells me nothing is going to happen in four days ? and he is always right. As dads are."
His own career at Sky had unlikely beginnings ("I was doing shitty shifts for Sky News getting Francis Wilson's weather maps wrong and being bollocked at four in the morning by people I didn't care too much about") but he rose to become head of operations for the broadcaster's broadband and mobile division.
He quit Sky after winning the contract to produce the content for Channel 4's music website in a joint pitch with Peter Robinson, creator of Popjustice, the influential pop website. The pair had not expected to win it ? "we did a two-page pitch, a complete piss-take, and to this day I have no idea how we did it" ? but it was worth �350,000 a year and bankrolled "lawyers, accountants ? all that boring shit ? as well as hiring seven staff and finding offices and furnishing it".
Short-lived partnership
East sold a stake in the company to digital media firm Perform in 2008 but the partnership was short-lived, and he has since bought the stake back. "They had big plans to set up a big entertainment-style site and saw Holy Moly as a very good starting point. But their strategy just kind of changed and they realised sport and betting was their main thing."
A further defining moment involved neither a scoop nor a big-money media partner but something rather more prosaic (readers of a sensitive disposition, look away now). "Cunts Corner" was a section of the site where people could explain why they thought certain celebrities were, well, it speaks for itself. "It was a huge thing for the website and the brand," says East. "Within 24 hours we had 10,000 entries on it. When you mention Holy Moly everyone will say they love Cunts Corner, even though it's not really been there for a long time. It was a blessing but also a curse."
TV ambitions
East now wants to make a Holy Moly TV show, two years after a pilot for MTV was not picked up. "You don't do a deal with Endemol without having TV at the forefront of your mind," he says. "I've spoken to most of the broadcasters about doing one at various points. They are always slightly scared ? how it's going to affect access to talent, about legals, and about sharing the branding. If I'd said 'I'll make you a TV show in the Holy Moly style and you can brand it however you want', they would have jumped at it. But why would I want to do that? It's got to be about Holy Moly."
East dismisses the suggestion the Endemol tie-up will damage the site's credibility. "If and when I find out who is in the Celebrity Big Brother house [about to return on Channel 5] it won't be because Endemol has told me and I won't be asking them if I can run it. They won't stop me writing anything. They have had Charlie Brooker under their wing for several years, in a similar kind of arrangement I would imagine."
The money from the Endemol deal ? said to be "significant" ? will all be reinvested in to the business. Four years after he quit Sky, has it made East his fortune? "I've got a wife and four kids and all the rest of it and it's kept me going. I've not taken any dividends out."
But he's not about to become a father of five, after having a vasectomy which he commented on live on Twitter. Sounds right up Endemol's street. "I was just bored in the waiting room and I said it as a joke," he explains. "Then Stephen Fry retweeted it so I had to go through with it." Holy moly indeed.
Lori Heuring Nicole Scherzinger Jill Arrington Tami Donaldson Padma Lakshmi
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