The profile, published by the Los Angeles Magazine on Wednesday, delves into Yashar Ali’s troubled past relationships with high profile figures and celebrities. He is pictured above in his Twitter profile image
Journalist and Twitter ‘power broker’ Yashar Ali has been accused of owing $179,000 to a Getty heiress and was once evicted from Kathy Griffin’s home, according to a lengthy new profile that details his ‘checkered history’ and rise to fame.
The profile, published by the Los Angeles Magazine on Wednesday, delves into Ali’s troubled past relationships with high profile figures and celebrities.
It also likens the popular social media personality to the ‘Talented Mr Ripley’ and includes claims that Ali is a ‘grifter’ who can be ‘vengeful and very vindictive’.
The 41-year-old is well-connected and has roughly 800,000 followers on Twitter. He tweets an average of 60 times per day.
Ali, who was born and raised in Chicago, started out as a Hollywood production assistant before becoming a political operative and adviser to now-California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Ali has made a name for himself in the last five years as a journalist and social media star whose most recent reporting – which he mostly breaks on Twitter and Substack – included the takedown of Sharon Osbourne where she was accused of racism on the set of The Talk. Osbourne has denied the allegations of racism.
While the profile details his journalistic scoops and influence, the magazine also notes Ali’s pattern of behavior in making friends with powerful people and becoming part of their inner circles.
It also details some of Ali’s subsequent fallouts, including one with Kathy Griffin, and his legal fight with heiress Ariadne Getty.
The 41-year-old, who has roughly 800,000 followers on Twitter, started out as a Hollywood production assistant before becoming an adviser to now-California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Ali has made a name for himself in the last five years as a powerful journalist and social media star whose most recent reporting included the take down of Sharon Osbourne
The 41-year-old is well-connected and has roughly 800,000 followers on Twitter. He tweets an average of 60 times per day
Ali made friends with heiress Ariadne Getty after getting a staff job on Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign back in 2008. Getty’s family have supported Newsom’s political career.
Ali started flying regularly between San Francisco and LA to see Getty at her $14 million Beverly Hills home.
Unnamed sources told the magazine that Ali began to borrow large amounts of money from Getty in 2012.
Getty filed a lawsuit in 2017 to recoup the money, which she says totaled $179,000.
Despite them reaching an agreement to repay the money in monthly installments, Ali allegedly only made two repayments and the debt is still outstanding.
In 2017, Ali made friends with Kathy Griffin after the comedian came under fire for posting an image of her holding the severed head of former president Donald Trump.
The magazine detailed how Griffin sent Ali a DM on Twitter and they realized they both attended the same high school in Chicago.
They initially started chatting about a potential interview to clear up the Trump matter but Ali eventually became Griffin’s unofficial advisor and publicist.
Griffin let him stay at her Bel Air mansion when he said he was coming to LA in 2018.
Sources told the magazine that Ali ended up staying for nine months before Griffin asked him to leave in 2019.
In 2017, Ali made friends with Kathy Griffin after the comedian came under fire for her Trump severed head stunt. Griffin let him stay at her Bel Air mansion when he said he was coming to LA in 2018. Sources told the magazine that Ali ended up staying for nine months before Griffin asked him to leave in 2019
Ali made friends with heiress Ariadne Getty after getting a staff job on Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign back in 2008. Unnamed sources told the magazine that Ali began to borrow large amounts of money from Getty in 2012. Getty filed a lawsuit in 2017 to recoup the money, which she says totaled $179,000
Griffin and her staff had allegedly become concerned when Ali essentially became a recluse in his bedroom and started receiving official government mail at her address.
Griffin’s friend, journalist Joan Walsh, said of the comedian’s relationship to Ali: ‘I completely believed that she was uncomfortable and maybe even afraid, and I sympathized with her.’
Ali insists he only stayed for six months and it was because Griffin insisted.
Griffin would not comment about Ali but her representative issued a statement saying: ‘Sometimes you make a new friend and that friend turns out to be quite a different person than you thought they were.’
A former unnamed colleague in Newsom’s office said Ali had always attached himself to high profile people.
‘He’s always attached himself to rich, powerful people and to elected officials and made himself appear indispensable,’ the colleague said.
‘I don’t exactly fear him, but he can be vengeful and very vindictive.’
Another former colleague said: ‘There’s a little bit of the Talented Mr Ripley in him.’
The Talented Mr Ripley, which was written as a novel and then adapted for the big screen, depicts Tom Ripley – a career criminal and con artist who adopts the life of someone else.
Ali, who was born and raised in Chicago, started out as a Hollywood production assistant before becoming a political operative and adviser to now-California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Ali, who was interviewed for the profile, was asked by the magazine whether he had people who would be willing to comment on him for the profile.
He sent the reporter a list of 40 names and phone numbers of high profile people, including Busy Phillips, Piers Morgan and Meghan McCain.
When asked specifically about his fall-outs with the likes of Getty and Griffin, Ali said he had signed NDAs with them that limited his ability to respond.
‘I have grappled a lot with entering into codependent relationships of all sorts over the past decade,’ he said.
‘Wanting to fix things and wanting to fix too much was one of my dysfunctional behaviors. It’s something I’ve talked about in therapy at length and something that I’ve worked past but it… still makes me sad when I think about it.’
In the interview, Ali also appeared to address his social media fame and popularity.
‘I’m vulnerable on Twitter, and that creates trust,’ he said.
‘I share things that I care about personally, and I also share the stuff that people would consider to be messy. Somebody I’ve never met tweeted at me the other day, ‘We refer to you by your first name in our household.’ As in, ‘Today Yashar said this, and today Yashar said that.’ Whatever that is, reporters don’t have that. I don’t know any reporters who have that, which is fine. I’m unusual.’