Page Six Magazine, “Up All Night With a Drug

I
Cat Marnell in her
apartment, getting
ready for a Tuesday
night out.
UP ALL NIGHT WITH A
DRUG
ADDICT
Beautiful,brilliantbloggerCatMarnell
shockedthemediawhenshesworeoffan
ordinarylifeforasummerofgettinghigh.
Sofar,thepartyhasn’tstopped.
By Annie Karni Photography by Chuck Grant
FT-Cat Marnell 1.indd 1
t’s 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and
Cat Marnell is shuffling
around her East Village
apartment with amphetamine-fueled purpose—pulling sheets over her mattress,
lathering her legs with bronzer, filing her favorite book back
on a shelf: Norman Mailer’s 1973
biography of Marilyn Monroe,
one of the many troubled dead
celebrities she’s fascinated with.
“I’ve always been interested
in overdoses and addictions,”
she says. “I’ll read [about] that
stuff forever. I’m obsessed with
cocaine overdoses in British
society. They call it the ‘white
death.’ I have a file of them on
my computer.”
Prepping for a vampire’s
tour of Lower Manhattan, she
lists the cocktail of uppers that
will power her slight 98-pound
frame through the night:
Vyvanse, Adderall, Provigil and
a few glasses of Gatorade and
vodka. “And I smoked pot earlier
today,” she adds.
As she primps at a low mirrored table, a small, white plastic
tube scratches her leg. “God,
my apartment is a mess, there’s
a crack pipe on the floor,” she
says, throwing it in the garbage.
As for her new favorite vice,
angel dust, she’s not smoking
it tonight. “I wouldn’t do that
in front of you,” she says curtly.
“I would tell you to go home.
Besides, I think my dust dealer’s
in jail or something. Where’s my
cellphone?”
This is the drug-addled world
of Cat Marnell, 29, the popular
former beauty columnist for
the website xojane.com who was
fired because she refused to get
clean. “I couldn’t spend another
summer meeting deadlines
behind a computer at night
when I could be on the rooftop
of Le Bain looking for shooting
stars and smoking angel dust
with my friends,” she told Page
Six in June.
Her candid love of drugs—
nypost.com/pagesixmag
47
8/24/12 12:38:38 PM
and her choice to keep doing
them instead of climbing the
career ladder—rocked the New
York media scene. How could
Cat maintain her good looks
and writing talent while being
high—and blabbing about
it—constantly? The platinumblonde blogger didn’t fit the
image of your typical hardcore
addict.
Two weeks after being axed,
Cat was scooped up by Vice magazine, who offered her a chance
to write about her pill-popping
life in an uncensored column,
“Amphetamine Logic.”
C
at opens the door to her
apartment wearing a
dirty white tank from
Top Shop over a ragged
white slip. She is friendly but
distracted, her eyes focused on a
point just behind you. Her large
studio apartment is jam-packed
with stacks of European fashion
magazines, while cut-outs of
druggy muses Kate Moss and
Amy Winehouse paper the walls.
A pillow by Jonathan Adler bears
a cheerful needlepoint that
reads pill.
She clips extensions into
her already long blonde locks
and magnifies her big, empty
eyes with rings of dark mascara
and liner. Describing herself as
the “bald Britney Spears of the
literary world”—a line she’s fed
to multiple journalists over the
past few months as she preps to
write her memoir through the
haze of addiction—she looks
more like a wounded Bambi.
At 10:30 p.m. Cat tucks her
hair under a neon trucker hat
and stuffs multiple pill bottles
into her Balenciaga bag. Her first
stop of the night: a potluck dinner at a friend’s place in Tribeca.
“It’s Cat!” she yells into the
intercom, then walks into the
room like she owns it. “I’m the
only one here who isn’t an artist,” she says, boosting herself
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11:15pm
12:05am
12:40am
1:10am
A bronzed, frenzied
Cat carries offerings of
vodka, Gatorade and
pills to a potluck with
artist friends in a
graffiti-adorned
Tribeca apartment.
Her former xojane.com
boss Jane Pratt texts
to check on her.
onto a fold-out table in front of a
frequent habit, according to Cat.
large graffitied canvas.
“Love you,” she texts back. “Me
Cat’s contribution to the dintoo,” writes Jane.
ner is a bottle of vodka and a liter
“Jane and I are incredibly
of Gatorade; everyone else had
close and always will be,” Cat
the same idea. The only food—a
says. “Jane wanted to keep me
small carton of macaroni and
around, but ultimately she had
cheese—remains untouched.
to answer to other people. We
Cat has rolled with the same
have a magical relationship.”
friends since her years at The
A cab delivers Cat to the Jane
New School, an experience she
Hotel, the trendy West Village
sums up as “cocaine, sleeping
hotspot. She flashes an ID that’s
pills, tanning beds, graffiti writcaked with bronzer, makes her
ers and nightclubs. College was
way to the Victorian couch closonly important for internships.”
est to the DJ booth and scans
Indeed, she rose through the
the packed, dancing crowd. She
ranks of Condé Nast working as
pulls out her personal boozea beauty editor, first at Glamour
filled thermos, then extends a
and then at Lucky, before burnforefinger for one of her friends
ing out. “At Condé Nast, I was ly- to tap out a bump of white powing to my boss
der, illuminated by the light of
about drugs,”
an iPhone. The
“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN
she says,
line is gone with
INTERESTED IN
lazily smoking
one snort.
OVERDOSES AND
ADDICTIONS. I’LL READ
a cigarette. “I’d
But cocaine
ABOUT THAT STUFF
been an addict
barely excites
FOREVER. I’M OBSESSED
WITH COCAINE OVERDOSES
the whole time.
her, she explains.
IN BRITISH SOCIETY.
They were
“I’m not a happy
THEY CALL IT THE
so generous.
person. I’m a nar‘WHITE DEATH.’
They sent me to
cissist, but I hate
I HAVE A FILE
rehab. Leaving
OF THEM ON MY myself. I have tons
Condé Nast is
of friends, but the
COMPUTER.”
still one of my
subtext of those rebiggest heartlationships is, well,
breaks.”
they’re sort of like party people.
She’s surrounded by about 10
I go out because it stimulates my
guys she refers to as her “sexless
brain, but I’m not going out to
boyfriends”—including her ex
meet guys and hook up. You go
Alex Wilmot, who co-owns the
where the drugs are.” She gets
East Village restaurant Whitquiet for a second and adds, “I
mans. “He’s the only guy I’ve
do have a desire to change and
ever been in love with,” she says,
stop; I would really love not to
swinging her arm around him.
be on pills. I just don’t know if
He smiles as if he’s heard it all
the AA thing is what I want right
before.
now. I get very bored by it. I’m
“I choose drugs over sex and
just not ready for it yet.”
I always have,” she says loudly,
By 2:30 a.m., Cat’s brain is
not caring who hears. “People
in need of more stimulation.
have wanted to date me, and I
She and pal Leah McSweeney,
try, but I can’t. It’s very hard for
designer of the street label Marpeople to understand addicts
ried to the Mob, plan their next
are very selfish.”
move. “It’s gay night at the Box,”
Just before 1 a.m. her former
says Leah, who herself is sober.
xojane.com boss, Jane Pratt
In another taxi, Cat returns to
(who declined to comment for
her obsession with celebrities
this story), texts to check in—a
who have OD’d. Despite her fas-
8/24/12 12:41:17 PM
cination, she insists she has no
Castoro, who wants Cat to evendesire to end up a name added to tually write about other topics
the computer file.
too. “She’s writing about her
“I don’t want to die and I’m
life, and it’s brave. The reality is,
not a heroin addict. I’ve done
she would continue to do drugs
it, but it’s not my drug. I don’t
without having an outlet to write
even drink that much. I can
about it. She’s an important
write about drugs and do them
writer who should have an outat the same time because I’m on
let. We don’t glorify it; we’re just
uppers. And I have my limits. I
honest about it. Anyone who
would never do meth, just for
knows someone who uses drugs
vain reasons. I’m wildly interknows: You can’t tell them to
ested in it, but I won’t do it now.
stop. From the beginning, I told
I’ve done it when I was younger;
her, ‘I’m not going to be your
I’ve done everything.”
parent.’”
The cab driver smiles at Cat
A pity, because she could
as they pull up to the Box. Cat
probably use one. She got her
takes off her
first legal script from her father,
shoes and ata wealthy psytempts to hoist
chotherapist
“I CHOOSE DRUGS
herself on top
who she no
OVER SEX AND
of a mailbox.
longer speaks
I ALWAYS HAVE.
She loses her
to.
PEOPLE HAVE
balance and
“My dad
WANTED TO DATE
crashes down
prescribed me
ME, AND I TRY, BUT
on the sideAdderall and
I CAN’T.
walk before
gave me my first
IT’S HARD FOR PEOPLE TO
UNDERSTAND ADDICTS
apologizing: “I
sleeping pill
ARE VERY SELFISH. I
don’t usually
when I was 12,”
GO OUT BECAUSE IT
STIMULATES MY BRAIN,
walk around
says Cat, who
BUT I’M NOT GOING
barefoot, but
grew up with a
OUT TO...HOOK UP.”
whatever.”
younger brother
Leah shows the
and an older
bouncer a text on
sister in wealthy
her phone, which allows them
Bethesda, Maryland, as a neighto cut the line and waltz straight
bor of Mike Tyson. “Adderall is
into the dark cavern of the
the devil. It ruined my life.”
burlesque bar. Cat’s sweating.
During her senior year at
She rips off her tank top, leaving
boarding school in Groton,
her exposed in her white slip,
Massachusetts, Cat says, she got
dancing and snapping photos
pregnant. After an abortion, she
with Leah.
received benzodiazepine and
Now that she’s without a desk
Xanax. It was love at first pop.
job, this counts as work, mate“I got hooked on that right
rial for her next column.
away,” she yells over the din in
The editor-in-chief of Vice
the club. Her father eventually
magazine, Rocco Castoro, isn’t
cut off her prescriptions, and
worried about exploiting Cat or
she severed ties with her family.
encouraging her to live a sensa“My dad is disgusted with
tional and unhealthy lifestyle
me—and rightfully so, I’m sure,”
by giving her a column, but he
she says. “My dad is a narcissist
doesn’t want to see her name on
and a hardcore Republican. I was
the “white death” list either.
always scared of him. I’ve always
“If she told us tomorrow she
done everything to rebel against
wanted to stop taking drugs, we
him. My parents hated each
would help her do that,” says
other, but my brother, sister
1:15am
1:20am
2:00am
2:20am
2:30am
2:45am
3:00am
The debauchery continues with cab rides
to the Jane for cocaine
and the Box for drugfueled dancing, with a
pitstop at a mailbox for
a sidewalk stumble.
and I didn’t know that. We just
thought they hated us.”
She dismisses her mother
with a wave of her hand and describes her as an “empty lot.” All
she inherited from her, she says,
are eating issues: Cat is proudly
bulimic. “Real girls know how to
do it,” she smiles coyly. “It’s part
of being a woman.”
Cat claims to receive no
money from her parents and
cringes at the term “trust fund.”
She won’t discuss her source of
income.
After her father cut her off,
Cat became “a huge doctor
shopper,” she says. “I’d go to different psychiatrists. I’d fill them
at different pharmacies. I take
about nine pills a day. I don’t
think about it anymore until I
run out of it and then you think
about it. Now I see one doctor
and I’ve cut down.”
“She’ll stop when she feels
enough pain,” says Leah of her
friend’s drug abuse. “Or when
she buries a friend. That changes
everything.”
Cat’s been out for five hours,
and she’s looking a little worse
for wear. Her eyes are wild,
like a frightened horse, and her
mascara and eyeliner have bled.
At some point in the earlymorning hours, she’ll make her
way back to her apartment alone
and crash into bed, her mind and
heartbeat still racing.
She texts the following evening at 6 p.m. “Hope you aren’t
as f**king tired as I am today,”
she writes. She hasn’t left her
apartment, she says. “Now I
want chicken wings.”
An hour later she’s posted a
Twitter pic of herself chowing
down on a basket of wings.
She’s changed into a pair of
jean shorts and a tank top but
hasn’t washed her hair or her
face. In three hours, she’ll
start the getting-ready routine
all over again and head back
into the night.
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