LGBTQ+ Press Editor • NYT Writer • Lecturer
CHRIS AZZOPARDI
Editorial Director + Journalist
I've been published in Vanity Fair, GQ, Billboard, New York Magazine and The New York Times, where I regularly write about and review film. I am also editorial director and celebrity interviewer for Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate, the LGBTQ+ wire service. I am very proud of one of our most recent covers, which features original artwork by a 15-year-old trans kid.
Recently, at the end of 2023, I interviewed Cher for this exclusive, coordinated by Cher's longtime publicist Liz Rosenberg (Madonna, Stevie Nicks). In a followup after the interview, Rosenberg emailed me and wrote, "Really that was one of my favorite Cher interviews. You were both perfection."
In 2021, I was hired to do the question-writing and prep work for the producers of the Paris and Kathy Hilton interview featured on Netflix's "Go Ask Your Mother."
Also, RuPaul reads me.
To discover more about my work, click here. And for freelance and other work-related inquiries, please reach out to me here.
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REVIEWS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
June 2023
“Cypher” is a fakeout film disguised as a real music documentary. For a while, you believe it will chronicle the rapper Tierra Whack’s rise, from teenage Philadelphia poet to Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist whose fans include Cardi B and Billie Eilish.
As the film eases you in with a cushy setup, Whack jokes that it could be completely derailed, ending in jaw-dropping fashion — which it does. “You could die, I could die and then we can’t shoot anymore,” she says, amusing even the director, Chris Moukarbel.
April 2023
The doc, which captures the singer on a tour she was supposed to share with Naomi, seems content to exist primarily as a lifeline for others who have experienced loss. When Wynonna’s sister, the actress Ashley Judd, appears, it’s clear they’re working on their relationship, but not why they have to. Earlier, though, when Wynonna flips through old family photos at her mother’s home, that action is heartbreakingly specific. For the viewer, it’s a more palpable feeling.
The rest of “Between Hell and Hallelujah” amounts to a performance-focused tour diary with Hallmark-movie energy. Though Wynonna powers through the songs with admirable grit and grace, Specht’s approach is too awkwardly methodical and cloyingly vague to kindle enough unguided emotions. Without those rich details that make a song like the Judds’ “Flies on the Butter” come to life, the film plays like a country song with more chorus than verse.
November 2020
“In Wonder” wants so much to be a humanizing portrait, but it doesn’t go deep enough to crack Mendes’s polished love-crooner veneer, nor does it say anything new about fame that hasn’t been said in other pop-star docs of recent years. With its revelations tenuous, its function is clear: to promote his upcoming album.
This one’s for his roughly 26 million Twitter followers fine with seeing Mendes performing acoustically in an empty bathroom, and sharing stolen moments with girlfriend Camila Cabello. Less enthusiastic fans might wish the film’s opening shower metaphor wasn’t just a tease. I, for one, was hoping there’d be more behind the curtain.
