Tim Gunn on Gretchen, Mondo, vote-swaying, and crack-smoking ‘Project Runway’ judges
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Tim Gunn is so not Team Gretchen. On Tuesday, Wordsmoker reported that during a recent Kate Spade event in Pennsylvania, the outspoken ‘Project Runway’ co-host said he had wanted fan favorite Mondo Guerra to triumph over Season 8’s controversial winner, Gretchen Jones. He said that he was ‘still speechless’ about the decision, then added: ‘Nobody’s gonna be happy that I’m giving you this back story, but I can’t help myself!’
Gunn went on to say that when the vote was split, with judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia pulling for Gretchen while Heidi Klum and guest judge Jessica Simpson rallied for Mondo, Klum tried to get him to change Kors’ and Garcia’s minds. “I went with Heidi, and we made quite a case for our candidate,” he said. ‘Nobody mentioned Jessica Simpson,’ he said, earning laughs from the crowd.
Gunn also addressed other recent quips he’d made about the judges here in The Times: ‘I’ve been calling them a bunch of crack-smokers,’ he said. When Klum agreed with Gunn that Mondo should win, Gunn said, she asked, “Can you remove my crack-smoker badge?” To which he replied, “Yes, because Nina and Michael are smoking enough for all of us.’
Gunn’s final word on the winner? He paraphrased a fan, who he insisted said it best: ‘Mondo will do fabulously anyway, and Gretchen really needs the money.’ Ouch.
-- Melissa Maerz
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