She stood up. She said, “They want a spider, huh? They all fucking want a spider? I’ll give them a spider.”
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. I’mterrifiedof spiders. But I told her I’d support her anyway.
Tatiana
It was the Met Gala of 2017, yes. Ryan approached me with this idea, and I said, my girl, you are crazy. I do not pretend to understand what this is supposed to be. But for you, I will make it happen, and I will make it good.
The look was a deceptively simple one. Big black ball gown, structured strapless bodice with boned ribbing, big bustle, swaths of dark silk all slippery and shining and draped over her. Morticia Addams makeup, back to the red lip, bright and bloody.
But the cape was my crowning achievement, Ms. James, oh yes. I could not find fabric that behaved the way I wanted, so you know what? We made it ourselves. Me and the seamstresses working day and night, knotting this shimmery gossamer thread by hand into a 180-inch cape that floated over her shoulders and the red carpet.
Hollywood ReportMagazine, May 2017
The fangs were out for Ryan Holding at Monday’s Met Gala, with an ensemble developed by fashion giant Tatiana DeGroode that barked as loud as it bit. Holding wowed on the red carpet in a black Jean Paul Gaultier gown and classic Louboutins that flashed a matching red to her femme fatale pout. The look was completed with a spidery silken cape that clasped at her throat and gave her the air of a vampiress about to strike.
It’s been a quiet year in music for the singer ofDiatribefame, who released one independent single in January, “Go Home,” which is rumored to directly reference the star’s recent legal difficulties and fallout with Justin William Ayers.
Holding notably attended the Gala alone and set herself apart from her contemporaries who graced the promenade.
Perhaps she is taking her role as a black widow to heart.
Nineteen
Mari
It was strange how easily I was able to separate Ryan in my professional life from Ryan as my friend. I think that bothered her too. There were times she’d come down a floor to the Madcap administrative offices to talk with me, and I would be like, I can’t take a break, I’m in the middle of something, I’m literally trying to sellyour image, and you need to give me a second.
I don’t know why she asked me to come work for her team. Maybe she thought it would be different. Maybe she wanted to help me jump-start my career. But sometimes I wondered if she just wanted another friend on the inside to talk to.
It was also—I don’t know. It created kind of a tough dynamic. I mean, she was thestar. She wasRyan—everyone referred to her by first name only.Ryan liked this. Ryan didn’t like that. Ryan wants a Diet Coke, can someone run it up to her?She was above all of us, literally. She was other.
And I was working a really cool job,waycooler and better paying than anything my old UCLA friends had snagged, but it was still a job. I did my taxes. I filled my car with gas at the station on Washington Boulevard. I separated my whites and colors for laundry.
Ryan had someone to do all that stuff for her. She didn’t in the early days, but she’d begun her career so young that now, being so prolific felt normal to her. And sometimes I think she forgot we were living different lives.
Anyway, she learned to leave me alone when I was at work and to spend time with me when she normally would have outside those hours. Except one day when she came down and sat in the cubicle next to me and pulled a chair over.
I pulled myself out of whatever I’d been looking at—probably invoices for social ads. I booked a lot of those—and I said, “Yeah?”
“I want to go home,” she said.
“What,” I said. “Like the song? The one you wrote about Justin?”
She shook her head. “What do you think about a tribute to Hamilton? What if we shot something there?”
It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. She had so many high-level conversations, and I was always in the weeds. “Is this a Serge conversation you’re trying to have with me?”
“Stop being corporate, Mari,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I need you to be just regular Mari right now. My friend.”
“Sorry,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”
“I had this weird dream last night,” Ryan said, and she wasn’t looking at me anymore. “I went home to Hamilton, and nobody knew who I was. I mean, not even my parents. Not Frank. Not you. Have I changed that much?”
I said, “Well, you’ve changed. But you’re supposed to. When’s the last time you even talked to Frank?”
It came out more accusatory than I meant it, but she was the one who’d brought it up. “Maybe a year or two ago. He called me to congratulate me on the AMA win.”
“That was about five years ago, Ryan.”
