Erik Hedegaard

Donald Trump and Ivana at Tavern on the Green circa 2000, Chocolate on his tie, Ivana (may she rest in peace) a thorn in his side.

Twenty two or so years ago, I chanced to spend a few hours at Tavern on the Green, in Manhattan, chowing down with Donald Trump and Melania, who was just his girlfriend back then, black leather pants, black shoes, black overcoat, black turtleneck,…

collected self portraits

From the Vault: Bob Saget Is One Dirty Dad

That Time Johnny Depp and Keith Richards Went Nuts on Me

Christopher Walken: the Devil Inside

Christopher Walken: Please send us a communication. Where are you from? What’s in your mind? And what’s with your hair? 2008 There are lots if spooky actors in the world but none more spooky than Christopher Walken. He is enormous with spooky. It…

Intro to My Manson Audible creation

When Erik Hedegaard was assigned a feature on Charles Manson for Rolling Stone, he had no idea he’d become the last journalist to interview Manson in the flesh, before the notorious cult leader died in 2017. In fact, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do…

Who Killed the Nazi on Campus?

Will Texas Execute an Innocent Man?

Letters to the editor: hate mail and even a little love....

a collection of letters to the editor about stories i’ve done, along with ramblings from various internet others. some love, along with a good bit of hate, some deserved, some which got me thinking, some which simply got to me. do i have regrets? do…

The Last Manson Mystery

Bob Steiner/Globe Photos, Inc. Listen to an audio version of this story below: On the dusty, heat-blister town of Vacaville, California, halfway between Sacramento and Oakland, sits the bleak squat prison that holds a trim, handsome, highly…

Manson Lives: Actor Damon Herriman on Playing the Cult Mastermind — Twice

The Australian actor Damon Herriman is probably best known for playing the dimwitted hillbilly Dewey Crowe on FX’s long-running drama Justified. But after this summer, he’ll go down in history as the best actor ever to portray Charles Manson, the…

Kevin Costner: A Hollywood Gunslinger Looks Back

Emerson Miller/Paramount Network Unbeknownst to just about everybody, Kevin Costner could not have become Kevin Costner — that is to say, the biggest movie star around for a 10-year run starting in the late 1980s, with him swinging bats at balls in…

Shock and Aww: Inside the Mostly Wild and Sometimes Mild Life of Dr. Ruth

Austin Hargrave/Hulu It’s still early in the day, but Dr. Ruth, who has been giving advice on all matters sexual for the past 44 years — she’s had radio shows and TV talk shows, was a David Letterman and Johnny Carson favorite, has written 46 books,…

Why Isn’t Anybody Listening?

Out in the leafy suburbs of Woodland Hills, California, in an OK house in an OK neighborhood, the actor Corey Feldman is wandering around, saying he soon might name the name of the man he says raped his like-a-brother best friend and frequent…

The Great Lost John Malkovich Interview

Claudette Barius/Netflix Nine years ago, Rolling Stone sent me deep into the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region of France, to interview John Malkovich at the home he kept there. He had two new movies coming out: RED, starring him as an LSD-addled…

When Melania and Donald Were Still Dating....

I wrote the following about two decades ago, before the two wed, and don't think it ever ran. Just found it, so I thought I'd put it here, for anyone who cares. My favorite moment? When Melania sees a pair of mating dragonflies and says, "Oh, my…

The Anxious Comedy of Howie Mandel

Showtime These days, Howie Mandel is hanging in there OK, all things considered. “In my humble opinion, I’m doing fine,” is what he says. On the plus side, he’s got his nine-seasons-and-no-stop-in-sight judging gig on America’s Got Talent; he’s…

From Book Reports to ‘Buster’: The Ballad of Tim Blake Nelson

Netflix Travel hither and yon and it’s probably only once in a great long while that you come across someone like Tim Blake Nelson. Frankly, he doesn’t look all that impressive. Ebbing hairline, a wide-open-plains-type forehead, blues that seem…

Woody Harrelson’s Lost Weekend

Jake Michaels/Redux Up in the fourth-floor bedroom of a friend’s house in London, Woody Harrelson, 56, has spent the past five hours playing online speed chess against anonymous souls from out there in the ethers. His only nourishment is coming from…

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Long, Hard Road to Decadence, Depravity and ‘Patrick Melrose’

Ollie Upton/SHOWTIME Earlier today, in Malibu, CA, not far from the water, a few hours after first light, naked in bed because his jammies were in the wash, Benedict Cumberbatch, 41, came to life. He would have risen earlier but the night before he’d…