Bonnie Fuller: Moonlighting Since December?

When Bonnie Fuller left American Media in May with a year still to go on her contract, it touched off a predictable round of did-she-jump-or-was-she-pushed speculation, with Fuller, of course, insisting it was purely a jump. Now here's some information that bolsters her version of events -- and suggests she may have been less than fully invested in the job as she neared quitting time.

Two weeks ago, Fuller revealed in The New York Times that she's starting a new company, Bonnie Fuller Media, to produce the sort of content she's known for -- gossip, women's service, etc. It turns out that Fuller registered the URL "bonniefullermedia.com" back on Dec. 7 -- a full five months before she stepped down as editorial director of AMI.

Of course, by then, Fuller had effectively already been cooling her heels for a good 10 months, with the biggest part of her job, editing Star magazine, having been handed over to Candace Trunzo.

I asked Fuller whether she knew already in December that she'd be leaving AMI and striking out on her own before her contract expired. "I have registered a number of URLs from time to time to protect my name," was all she said.