By now, we shouldn’t have to tell you who Lainey Lui is.
If you’re a lover of shameless celeb gossip, then we wouldn’t have had to tell you who she was about eight years ago, when her hugely successful blog, Lainey Gossip became one of the most popular in the country.
Since then, Lui has relocated from Vancouver to her hometown Toronto, and become a correspondent on eTalk and a co-host on The Social.
She’s also a published author, having released Listen to the Squawking Chicken last year.
We caught up with Lainey on Thursday’s Young Women in Law Gala, where she was in-house to chat with the next generation of female powerhouse lawyers.
Here are 7 things that got her where she is today:
She’s Passionate
Lainey Gossip is – and always has been – a passion project.
“At the beginning, I was working from home in a one-bedroom apartment. My desk was the office. It was really grassroots, but I still feel that it’s a little bit grassroots. We don’t have an office space; a lot of things are virtual.”
“For three years, I worked for Covenant House and the blog at the same time, until it became viable to pursue as a fulltime opportunity. But I always say, if there were 40 hours in a day, I would still be working for Covenant House. Three years is a long time. I think sometimes there’s this misconception that things happen so quickly on the internet; that you do something, and a month later, you’re Facebook. I went for three years with no pay. When I started in 2005, blogging was just invented. It was very early and you had to be prepared to do it for no pay – or shitty pay.”
She’s Tough
Lainey’s advice to young women in business is to toughen up.
“I look for a lack of sensitivity. I feel like in the workplace, everybody should have a ‘no crying’ policy; no crying at work and don’t take things personally. In my mind, crying is a manipulative behavior and I wouldn’t want anyone manipulating to get what they need. You can defend yourself; I don’t want to see you cry.”
She Doesn’t Do ‘Mickey Mouse’
“The mistakes that make me crazy are things that are ‘amateur hour’ mistakes. I talk about premium branding and premium gossip and I hate when our site looks Mickey Mouse. I think that at times we have, and my goal is to eliminate all of that. That’s a snotty thing to say – no offense to Mickey Mouse. I just think it represents a disconnect in brand.”
“We didn’t know what we were doing at the beginning in the sense that there was no roadmap. Our biggest mistake was probably when we didn’t add enough space to our servers before the Golden Globes and on Golden Globe Monday. We had a big crash because all this traffic was coming to our site. Golden Globe Monday is the second highest traffic day on the gossip site, next to the Oscars… I want people to read our words, and when the site goes down, it’s so defeating because you work so hard. It’s obviously a loss in revenue, and it makes you look amateur.”
She’s Loyal
“The Social is wonderful, eTalk is wonderful, but the priority is always the blog. It’s the reason I wake up, it’s what I focus on – that’s mine; I created it. Other opportunities may present themselves, but I would never give up Lainey Gossip to just do television. Ever. I wouldn’t give up writing either.”
She Isn’t a Fame Whore
As Lainey Gossip grew in popularity, eTalk sought Lainey out.
“They wouldn’t have approached me if I didn’t dedicate everything I had to the site. eTalk was a bonus. If you always have a better goal than the thing that you’re doing, then you almost feel that you’re working against yourself. The thing that you’re doing now needs to be the dream.”
“I think my role on TV at the very beginning was to provide the content that I was already doing on my blog. I wasn’t hired to be anything other than a gossip, which is what I do. It was just another job to me, or another responsibility under my current job. For me, the reason I’m on TV is because I have those opinions, which started from my website. My opinion is resonating for whatever reason to other people.”
“I’m not the best on camera work; I’m not the best at voiceovers; I am actually not the best at conventional television things. I don’t read the prompter very well.”
She’s Able to Connect
“It’s always the people in the superficial professions who are accused of not being well rounded enough. There are people in other professions who are also not well rounded. A doctor or an investment banker may be knowledgeable about medicine and finance, but does that mean they have people skills? Are they able to have a conversation with someone? Are they real? Are they able to empathize? It’s only the ‘superficial people’ who get accused of not being well rounded. But I would argue – because of this job – put me in any environment and I feel like I could connect with somebody. You couldn’t just throw a neurologist on the TV show and let them segue their way in.”
She Doesn’t Stay Idle
“Never look like you have lots of time on your hands. I come from a family of immigrants – nobody is idle. You’re always looking for something to do.”
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