The granddaughter of Babe Paley has hit out at the popular television series Feud: Capote vs The Swans for portraying the socialite as a pill-popping alcoholic.
Flobelle ‘Belle’ Burden shared her thoughts about the FX show and insisted some of the details about Paley’s life were completely made up.
‘There are no live recordings of Babe, no way for an actress to know how she moved and spoke,’ she wrote in The New York Times. ‘What I cannot accept is the theft of my grandmother’s narrative.’
Paley was a fashion editor of Vogue and a socialite who rose to the top of New York society with her husband CBS co-founder William Paley during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, until her death from cancer aged just 63 in 1978. But her granddaughter says she does not recognize the woman portrayed in the television show and claims their family was never consulted.
The new show, by Ryan Murphy and which premiered on January 31, retold author Truman Capote’s entry into high society – as well as his fall from grace following the backlash he received by sharing the women’s darkest secrets they confided in him.
Those included an affair Paley’s late husband is said to have had with one of her friends, Happy Rockefeller.
The granddaughter of Babe Paley has hit out at the popular television series Feud: Capote vs The Swans for portraying the socialite as a pill-popping alcoholic. Pictured: Naomi Watts playing Paley in the show
Belle Burden shared her thoughts about the FX show and insisted some of the details about Paley’s life were completely made up. She is pictured with ex-husband Henry Davis, who she claims dumped her for another woman during lockdown, then told her he didn’t want custody of their children
But on the back of its release, Burden says she feels immensely unimpressed by the way her grandmother has been shown in the series, claiming Paley’s life has been ‘stolen and twisted again’.
From her first introduction to the show, Burden felt uneasy, watching her beloved grandmother being portrayed during an apparent emotional crisis.
‘The first time I saw Naomi Watts playing my grandmother Babe Paley in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, she was in tears,’ Burden wrote.
‘She had just discovered her husband’s affair with Happy Rockefeller, the governor’s wife, finding him on the bedroom floor, scrubbing a stain of menstrual blood from their plush carpet.
‘Babe summons Truman Capote to her Fifth Avenue apartment, her face set in distress, her mascara running.
‘He tries to comfort her, handing her a Valium, reminding her that her marital arrangement is still worth it; she can buy a Matisse to soothe her broken heart.
‘None of this happened. I can accept that details are changed when real people are fictionalized. I know it is hard to capture the ineffable magic of someone’s presence.’
Burden revealed her grandmother was hurt after Capote publicly shared the things she told him in confidence.
‘My grandmother was wounded by Capote taking the things she told him, changing them, betraying her confidence and her privacy, which she guarded fiercely,’ she said.
‘Now her life has been stolen and twisted again, posthumously, by the creators of “Feud,” including the executive producer Ryan Murphy, the writer Jon Robin Baitz and the director Gus Van Sant.
Paley was a socialite who rose to the top of New York society with her husband CBS co-founder William Paley in the 70s
Paley made her debut as a debutante at age 19 and later became a top fashion editor at Vogue in 1939. She’s seen in 1954
After marrying CBS co-founder William Paley in 1947, Paley (seen here in 1967) quit her job to become a full-time socialite
‘In the show, Babe is drawn as the ultimate victim: of her husband’s infidelity, Capote’s betrayal, her failing health.
‘In victimhood, in her constant suffering, in the dramatic fabrications, she becomes one-dimensional, a woman defined by surfaces — a woman defined by men, reconstructing her life to suit their needs.’
The New York City lawyer said she had planned to take the show lightly but she was still left upset.
‘As I watched each episode, as the inaccuracies and misrepresentations stacked up, I felt furious, in defense of her,’ she said.
‘In real life, the grandmother I knew wasn’t a pill popper or prone to drinking to excess. She would never have been so shallow as to be placated by a piece of art or jewelry.
‘My grandmother quit smoking the day she was diagnosed with lung cancer; in almost every episode of the show, Babe smokes, even after chemotherapy sessions.
‘According to my mother, the birthday party featured in the fifth episode, in which Babe ends up drunk in a bathtub, never happened.
‘The writers of the show have embellished the facts of my grandmother’s life. The viewing public, including close friends of mine, have accepted this portrayal as the truth.
‘My grandmother was far more complex than that. She was brilliant. She was funny. She was rarely at rest. She read constantly. She could lead a conversation on any topic.’
She revealed that no one in her family was consulted about the portrayal of Paley.
By the 1970s, Paley and her husband (seen in 1965) were at the top of New York society and living a life of luxury – but Truman Capote exposed the radio mogul’s infidelities in his book
Naomi Watts is playing Paley in the show. Paley is seen left in real life and right in the series
‘Had they asked us and a different portrait of my grandmother — faithful to her, multidimensional — had been drawn, the whole of the story would have had more shape, more tension, more depth,’ Burden added.
‘What I wish more than anything is that my grandmother had lived long enough, and been bold enough, to tell her own story, claiming it before anyone had the chance to steal it from her.’
Burden also highlighted details she’d claimed the producers of Feud had gotten wrong. The lawyer insisted her late grandma would not have been soothed by a piece of art or jewelry on discovering her husband’s cheating, worn a shift dress, clip hat or baggy pants.
She further denied longstanding claims Paley’s beauty was the result of plastic surgery carried out after a car crash in her teens, insisting that she’d only lost her teeth in the accident.
Just months ago Burden shared her anguish after her financier husband of 20 years allegedly dumped her out of the blue during lockdown for another woman.
Burden previously revealed her husband Henry Davis announced he wanted to end their marriage while they sheltered from COVID at their $4.7 million Martha’s Vineyard holiday in spring 2020.
In a soul-baring article for the New York Times, she detailed the moment she, Davis and their two younger children, then 15 and 12, took shelter from the pandemic on the island – only to suddenly find herself a single mother.
She said she discovered her estranged husband had been harboring a secret relationship.
Burden wrote: ‘A week later, on March 22, at 6 a.m., my husband told me he wanted a divorce. He packed a bag, got in his Jeep and boarded a ferry. We had been married for nearly 21 years.
‘When he reached New York City, he laid out his narrative: He thought he had wanted our life but didn’t. He thought he was happy but wasn’t. A switch had flipped. He didn’t want our house or our apartment. He didn’t want any custody of our children.’
In the revealing article she claims that he ‘bought a sleek new Manhattan apartment, hired a well-known divorce lawyer,’ and treated her with a ‘consistent lack of empathy or sentiment.’ After a few weeks, Burden said Davis stopped contacting her.
She claims his two siblings, who she’d also been close to, ghosted her and said they could no longer speak to her because they needed to support their sibling.
Burden didn’t share any further details of her husband’s alleged affair, and says she’s unclear if that relationship is ongoing.
She alleged that the split stunned her, and recounted merrily planting blueberry bushes in the ritzy property’s garden with her former husband the year before in a haze of what she believed to be bucolic and matrimonial bliss.
Burden revealed that no one in her family was consulted about the portrayal of Paley. Pictured: Watts playing the socialite in the show
Burden previously revealed her husband Henry Davis announced he wanted to end their marriage while they sheltered from COVID at their $4.7 million Martha’s Vineyard holiday in spring 2020
She admitted she also struggled to understand Davis’ decision to blow up their decades long marriage but said she’d found some closure
Detailing the routine they’d established while sheltering, she said the family ‘delighted in the off-season use’ of the million dollar island escape.
Burden, who also resides in a multi-million dollar Tribeca loft, found out about the alleged affair from a voicemail left to her from the husband of the other woman on March 21.
‘I’m sorry to tell you that your husband is having an affair with my wife,’ he said.
Sharing how she found out Davis had been unfaithful, Burden wrote: ‘There was another woman, as there often is when men leave.’
Burden had married Henry Patterson Davis in June 1999 at her stepmother Susan’s home in Water Mill, NY after the pair met at a corporate law firm.
