Job postings for assistants rarely list responsibilities that include shooting up the boss with illegal drugs, sharing a bed or tolerating physical advances that District Attorneys characterize as rape.
Nor do they warn that the candidates will have their lives consumed by needy superstars who routinely test the moral limits of those around them. But such is the lot in life for celebrity assistants.
Consider the afternoon of October 28, 2023, when Kenny Iwamasa, who worked as Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant, injected the “Friends” star with a lethal dose of ketamine.
Iwamasa recalled the final words he heard from his boss — “Shoot me up with a big one” — when pressed by cops, following his arrest. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Perry died while floating in his backyard jacuzzi.
“My initial response is that it’s heartbreaking on many levels,” former celebrity assistant Merryl Futerman, author of the novel “Don’t Make a Scene: Struggles of a Celebrity PA,” told The Post. “But I’m also aware of the personal assistant being such a gray area in terms of a role. This is in terms of what you can be asked to do and how you can not not-do things, how it can be hard to say no.”
Speaking with The Post, a veteran Hollywood boss agrees: “You can’t say no. If Matthew Perry tells you that he needs a refill, you get it. He was helping to get him what gets him through the day. Now, the least powerful person” – one without access to the expensive lawyers and PR people who can protect celebrities – “has been arrested and pled guilty.”
It was also, of course, paramount to keep his boss’s drug habit under wraps. Iwamasa’s Linkedin profile notes his very best qualities at the top: “I am discreet, loyal and honor absolute confidentiality.”
The arrest of the 60-year-old native of Midland, Michigan, is said to have left friends and family “blindsided.”
Not all of Perry’s assistants had it so rough. Also under his employ was Briana Brancato. Judging by her Instagram and his book “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” key job responsibilities included lounging by the pool and being Perry’s best friend.
Former celebrity assistants and entertainment industry insiders told The Post that the reality of a celebrity assistant’s life is a mix of glitzy living, staying within arm’s length reach of Hollywood’s intoxicating star-studded world and being pressed to do reprehensible things.
“It’s a slippery slope,” a Hollywood A-lister told The Post. “You get asked to do something unethical, but you don’t want to lose your job and the star makes his assistant feel obligated. I’ve seen celebrities make their assistants carry drugs through the airport. Some assistants will go to any length.”
A top producer told The Post that saying no is generally not an option for anyone who wants to stay in the employ of an entitled superstar. If they’re demanding, he said, “it’s very hard. And sometimes [the celebrity] is abusive. You either have to put up with it or get another job.”
Stars can take comfort in the fact that assistants are dispensable: “It’s not hard [to find a new one],” continued the producer. “People want these jobs.”
More critically, they want a next job. In a recent New York Times op-ed, a former Harvey Weinstein assistant, Rowena Chiu, wrote that Weinstein “attempted to rape me.” She added that Weinstein could fire her “at the drop of a hat” and that getting another film-industry job would be off the table. “The blacklisting was permanent.”
However, assistant pay-rates may contribute to making things feel tolerable. The producer figures that a full-time assistant can earn $150,000 per year. Living with the boss or not, enough perks – like good restaurant meals, car transport and private jet travel – come with the package.
As the A-lister put it, “I spent a lot of nights at the Four Seasons because I like nice hotels. Due to that, my assistant was staying in $1,000 per night rooms.”
While the situation Iwamasa found himself in – needing to procure and administer drugs for his boss – is extreme, the A-lister sees how an assistant becomes sucked in. “You get caught up in his life and don’t know how to get out.”
So much so that the job can take over the assistant’s life. Bonnie Low-Kramen was an assistant to actress Olympia Dukakis, before Dukakis’ 2021 death. She now trains others to do work in the field and wrote a book about it.
She told The Post, “At times, I felt like I spent more time with Olympia than I did with my family.”
It’s not like a celebrity assistant’s day off is the same as a typical employee’s day off. “You are expected to drop everything and deal with problems,” said Futerman.
“I had a call about a burst pipe on the afternoon of New Years Eve. I was pulled out of what I was doing to find somebody who could stop the water until we got a proper plumber. It was up to me to deal with it. It was no longer the celebrity’s problem. That definitely scuppered my plans for New Years Eve.”
Lawsuits filed by assistants against their famous bosses tell the dark and weird side of the life. A one-time pal-turned-assistant for Lady Gaga recalled in court documents that the $75,000 per year gig “required” her to sleep in Gaga’s bed “because [Gaga] didn’t sleep alone.” That lawsuit was settled out of court.
Lauren Pisciotta sued Kanye West claiming sexual harassment and wrongful termination — something he denies. The case has yet to be heard in court.
Amanda Brack, a former assistant for Naomi Campbell, through her attorney, alleged that the super model slapped her in the face and shredded her passport after a photo shoot in Morocco. She denied it and the lawsuit was also settled out of court.
Describing the job as being that of a “terrified butler,” Chiu added, “an assistant to a celebrity can be expected to do whatever is asked of them, regardless of ethics or legality.” She described the relationship as a “toxic dynamic.”
Heather H. Howard, author of “Chore Whore: Adventures of a Celebrity Personal Assistant,” contended with such tasks. Upon being hired by a star of the TV series “Fame,” she told The Post.
“He said, ‘I’m being audited by the IRS and I told them I have all the receipts and everything.’ Then he said that he needed me to create his life for that time [in terms of expense receipts for the IRS auditor to see].
“I created a glorious book for him.”
For a “very big producer” she “set up trysts” while his significant other “was in Nepal or somewhere.”
On behalf of another client, who hadn’t had sex in a long time, she “enlisted a friend who was more than thrilled to keep the company of a celebrity for the night … But he didn’t want me to leave the house. He wanted me to stay in a different bedroom the entire time.”
According to Low-Kramen (who had a long and pleasant working relationship with Dukakis), “We all get to the line we won’t cross. Is it that you’re being asked to cover up an affair? Are you asked to forge documents?”
Referencing an early-20s female assistant who had to endure a celebrity answering the door naked and not making an effort to get dressed, she added, “I believe that assistants can set the tone right from the interview. Talk about discretion and mutual respect.”
The A-lister pointed out, though, that such a chaste attitude can derail the job before it even begins:
“During the interview, a celebrity might ask his potential assistant what he is willing to do. He can ask if you’re willing to pick up his wife’s birth control”
In fact, Howard remembers being dispatched to get a boss’s anal warts medication, prescribed to her name, because he was too embarrassed to be spotted doing it himself.
“Will you switch seats with him if the police pull him over for DWI? It’s a test of loyalty to see how far you will go.”
Then the A-lister added it may easily get to be too far: “Serious liability comes with being an assistant in Hollywood. You can wind up going to jail by giving your boss the wrong drug.”
