When Michele Promaulayko was tapped as Cosmopolitan’s new editor-in-chief last September, she hadn’t anticipated that it would require her every action to be filmed for several weeks.
She became the unwitting star of “So Cosmo,” the E! reality show now halfway through the series. Promaulayko succeeded Joanna Coles, who left the publication last fall to serve as Hearst’s first chief content officer, telling The New York Times “I just didn’t have another sex position in me.” Promaulayko is on a mission to prove Cosmo is more than just bedroom tips.
“We have readers who are in support of Hillary and readers who are in support of Trump, and we try to respect that,” Promaulayko said. “At the same time, it is important for Cosmo to talk about the issues that are important for women’s reproductive rights. When discussions of defunding Planned Parenthood come up, we want to be clear communicators and say that this is not an issue of abortion, this is an issue of healthcare.”
Glossy selected recent posts from her Instagram and asked her to weigh in on the pictures and share the inspiration behind them. The following has been lightly edited for clarity.
So Cosmo
The show was approved for air before the announcement that I was becoming editor-in-chief. It was a bit of curveball for everyone, but we all rolled with it. The first day of filming was actually my first day on the job. Starting as editor-in-chief of Cosmo was compounded by the making of the docu-series. In Cosmo fashion, everything is done with big fanfare, so this lived up to that. Cameras were in my office for my first eight-to-ten weeks.
This clip is from a scene in which Joanna and I are having dinner with the staff, which is also the cast of “So Cosmo.” The dinner was meant to be a transitional, getting-to-know-each-other thing, and there was a lot of nervousness. So one of the lines I said to lighten the mood and break the ice was, ‘Don’t worry I’m going to get to know all of you before heads roll!’ I immediately said, ‘Just kidding,’ but I just knew when I said it that it would be a juicy quote that they would use and extract.
The silent Marc Jacobs fashion show
This was at the Marc Jacobs show at the Park Avenue Armory. Editors were asked to not take photographs or videos at the show. This was before the show started. Zanna [Roberts Rassi] is a Hearst colleague over at Marie Claire. This is us saying, ‘We’re not supposed to be taking photos, and we’re trying really hard to be quiet,’ which is difficult when you run into friends and you want to gab.
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Cover stars
Ruby [Rose] is a really eye-catching cover — and an unorthodox choice for a Cosmo cover. She’s such an exciting person right now because she’s about to go from being a model/DJ/peripheral cast member on “Orange is the New Black” to being a bonafide movie star. She’s really having a moment that I think will be the inflection point of her career.
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As far as cover stars go, there’s a wide breadth of women who can appear on the cover of Cosmo, and there isn’t a prototype anymore. The basis for choosing a cover is somebody who is compelling, who people are curious about and who will resonate with readers, and that means people of different body types and different parts of the entertainment industry.
Election night
I started out the evening at Snapchat’s election viewing party, and then once the results started to roll in, I decided to head over to the Javits Center. I was hoping to find some information that might buoy my mood from thinking that we weren’t going to have our first female president. I got to Javits Center, and instead of feeling buoyed, the atmosphere there was very much like a deflating balloon. I didn’t stay long, and then I came back and sat on my couch and watched the results come in.
At @hillaryclinton’s NYC election-night HQ. What a cliffhanger!! 😳
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Overcoming camera shyness
This was close to the time we were shooting the show, when I had the cameras in my office for weeks. At this point, it was finally normal for me; I was used to it. In this particular photo, we were shooting our first video editors letter for our VR issue, in which we had a few moments where readers could access bonus content throughout the issue. We wanted to harness the excitement of VR and bring the pages to life.
