This issue brings together profiles of three very powerful people. First, our cover star Dwayne Johnson, probably the only fixture of the Fast & Furious franchise whose name is coupled with presidential rumors as regularly as Idris Elba’s is with James Bond. But “Will he or won’t he” merely scratches the surface—Chris Heath’s matchless story goes much deeper into the origins and aspirations of the actor and entrepreneur also known as The Rock. Then there’s David Zaslav, the longtime chief executive of Discovery—impresario of Shark Week and Cake Boss—whose proposed merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia is the latest tectonic shift in the streaming realignment, and one that vaults Zaslav from mere giant to colossus. And there’s Katie Porter, the representative from the 45th district of California, who flipped a red district blue in 2018 to take her place in Congress, a single parent fighting for justice with her chosen weapon: a whiteboard. Hollywood, media, politics—these landscapes are in the midst of metamorphosis, and the figures in our November issue are part of the vanguard.
This fall, Annie Leibovitz is releasing a collection of her fashion photographs—alluring, fantastical images of, in, and around the world of fashion. Wonderland contains everything from portraits of Karl Lagerfeld to an iconic 1999 photo shoot with Sean Combs and Kate Moss that crystallized the marriage of hip-hop and high style. (Of the influence of “Puffy Takes Paris,” Combs later said: “It was unapologetically Black and unapologetically hip-hop in Vogue. That’s that.”) Annie has photographed for Vanity Fair and Vogue for more than three decades—most of that time exclusively—and as an artist and high-concept thinker, she has an uncanny ability to document the culture while at the same time laying dreamscape foundations for where it might go next. In September, I hosted a party with Anna Wintour to celebrate Annie and this new book, in a pop-up studio space adorned with its images. I love the way she displayed them—pages pinned up on the wall in layout form, just the way we’d look at them as we’re putting together an issue of the magazine. Over the past few years, in our pages, Annie has photographed cultural and political figures whose work and legacies deeply influence our world: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lena Waithe, Emmanuel Macron, Stephen Colbert, Beto O’Rourke, Cicely Tyson, Nancy Pelosi, Kendrick Lamar. We’re excited for all the portraits yet to come.
— Inside Anthony Bourdain’s All-Consuming Relationship
— The Tortured History of the Royal Spare
— Behind Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s Timeless Wedding Dress
— Gabby Petito and the Queasy Effects of Real-Time True Crime
— The Real Housewives and the Anti-vaxxer
— Love Is a Crime: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger’s Cleopatra
— Shop Meghan Markle’s New York City Trip Looks
— The R. Kelly Guilty Verdict Was Nearly 30 Years in the Making
— From the Archive: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the Private Princess
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