Allison Williams, co-star of the HBO hit Girls, is the daughter of NBC News anchor Brian Williams, a man who makes his living by asking the tough questions. A cynic might even allege that Allison Williams would not be a famous TV star now were it not for her famous newsman dad. It would seem ironic, then, for Allison Williams to be instructing her PR soldiers to CENSOR even the gentlest of puff interviews.
Jamie Peck, a writer for The Gloss, recently interviewed Allison Williams for the site Crushable. At the end of the interview, she asked her the innocuous question, "What has dating been like for you as a young person in New York City?" At that—as Peck related on Facebook in a conversation supplied by a tipster—the interview was cut off by Williams' PR person, who later emailed her to say "Unfortunately, we had to remove the dating question segment from the video, and we would greatly appreciate it if you also removed that aspect from your article."
"I can't even write a mean post about it," said Peck on Facebook, "because the skincare line she is shilling for (and that set up the interview) is an advertiser." (Spoiler: Allison Williams' beauty secret is "washing my face"—with Simple™ brand face wipe things!) So:
1. Brian Williams achieves great wealth and fame in the TV journalism business, becoming the face of NBC News' fearless, unbowed journalistic tradition.
2. Because Brian Williams is a rich and famous journalist, his daughter, of course, gets a gig on a TV show.
3. His daughter's PR handlers preemptively censor even the mildest personal questions, thereby bringing the Williams family 180 degrees from its fearless journalistic roots.
We, the unbowed journalists of Gawker.com, are now forced to ask: WHO is Allison Williams dating that she DOESN'T want the world to know about? Please speculate in the discussion section below. Our guess: Mr. Streisand Effect.
Update: Crushable editor Jenni Maier emails us:
There are a few factual errors in your post. Simple Skincare is not an advertiser on Crushable. They simply facilitated the interview for us. In exchange for talking about her skincare routine, we were told we'd be able to interview Allison about Girls. Jamie had that information wrong on her Facebook page. Also, it would be cool if you could include a link to our site in the post you wrote.