Celebs from Russell Simmons (in trademark Yankees cap, clutching a plastic bottle filled with healthful-looking green juice), Michelle Trachtenberg, and Carson Kressley to David LaChapelle, Andre Leon Talley and Rachel Roy turned out in droves for a Crosby Street Hotel screening of the hotly anticipated Lee Hirsch-directed documentary “Bully.”
Hosted by The Weinstein Company and Bing with Anderson Cooper and Kelly Ripa, the screening left a powerful impression on many in the all-star audience. Sitting in the safe space of a boutique hotel’s screening room, dressed to the nines while watching kids in the heartland suffer for the very uniqueness that might make them popular and successful in New York’s entertainment and fashion world, was more than a bit jarring.
The film follows five families in Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Iowa — three with children who have been victimized by persistent bullying, and two who have lost children to suicide. (The 110-minute film opens with heartbreaking footage of one of the teen suicides as a baby, establishing an emotional intensity which never eases.) Read More
