Bonnie Fuller Hints at What's Next: 'Stay Tuned'

As she exits the stage at American Media, Bonnie Fuller already has her next act scripted. But what is it?

"I can't tell you much yet. I can only tell you that I can tell you more in a few weeks," she says. "Stay tuned."

Fuller, who's spent the past five years as AMI's editorial director, overseeing Star and the National Enquirer, plus a raft of other tabloids and health titles, won't even say whether she plans to stay in the celebrity news arena, or whether she plans to work for someone else or start her own business, just that there is "a new direction I wanted to pursue."

But she will discuss why she chose to leave now rather than in another year, when her three-year, $2 million-a-year contract is up. "It just felt like the right time," she says. "I felt like I had accomplished a great deal now, the mission that I was brought in to do. We've really done well."

Her recent achievements include overseeing redesigns of Men's Fitness, Fit Pregnancy and Country Weekly. There's also the ongoing tweaking of Star, the drastic makeover of which occupied most of her first few years at AMI. She calls Star's relaunch "an unqualified success," a characterization others in the ultra-competitive celebrity sector might dispute. Through mid-April, its newsstand sale average is about 695,000, down from 726,000 in the first half of 2007.

"Star is in great shape," she insists. "Most people didn't think Star could transition from a tabloid to a glossy, and it was a great challenge, but it worked. The magazine's having a very strong year and has actually had a very strong past couple years."

Fuller flatly denies speculation that her leaving is in any way involuntary. "This decision is 100 percent mine. David [Pecker, AMI's chairman] would tell you exactly the same thing."

She also says she doesn't think the mania for celebrity news that AMI hired her to exploit -- and whose blossoming can arguably be traced to her successful reimagination of Us Weekly -- is anywhere near burning out.

"What's been really exciting about the celebrity news space is how it's grown into all news. We started with first one magazine, then it expanded to six magazines, then it expanded into TV news, and then into regular newscasts headlining with celebrity news. The space has never been hotter.

"What I think's interesting is how celebrity news has become totally mainstream news. All of America wants to hear about celebrity news, and not just in entertainment magazines, but they want to see it on their six o'clock newscast, and then again at 10 and 11."

-----
Photo by AP