Howard Bragman, a beloved Hollywood publicist who specialized in disaster relations and whose clientele have integrated Monica Lewinsky, Cameron Diaz, Ricki Lake, Sharon Osbourne and Chaz Bono, has died immediately after a limited battle with leukemia. He was 66.
He died Saturday night time in Los Angeles, his relatives explained Sunday. Bragman was diagnosed with leukemia just 10 days ago and promptly hospitalized.
A indigenous of Flint, Michigan, where he said he constantly felt like a martian as a “fat, Jewish, homosexual kid,” Bragman bought his start out in public relations in Chicago, doing the job with clients like Anheuser-Busch. Inevitably he made his way to Los Angeles and established his very own company, Bragman Nyman Cafarelli (BNC), in 1989. He became recognized as a go-to for helping celebrities appear out publicly, like “Family Ties” star Meredith Baxter, region singer Chely Wright, basketball players John Amaechi and Sheryl Swoopes and soccer participant Michael Sam.
“Howard Bragman was an business leader who masterfully utilised the electrical power of the push to build constructive transform and visibility for LGBTQ folks,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis mentioned in a statement. “Throughout his long career, he worked with quite a few LGBTQ notables to assure their coming out stories have been handled with dignity and established effects for the complete local community. His very own visibility as an out govt, paired with a trademark humor and daring technique to community relations, manufactured unforgettable marks.”
Next BNC’s acquisition, he started the company Fifteen Minutes in 2005 and, later on, LaBrea Media.
He wrote an guidance ebook named “Where’s My Fifteen Minutes,” weaving in amusing anecdotes of a bygone Hollywood and relating that to the celebrity, media and audience landscape of currently. He advised that “all push is not fantastic press” and whoever claimed so is “an fool.”
In addition to currently being an oft-quoted pro on superstar crises, Bragman from time to time penned article content himself way too, in publications from Playboy to the Los Angeles Instances, and even appeared on a variety of reality reveals, which include “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and as a visitor decide on the to start with year of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Bragman’s influence on the marketplace was broad-spanning. He was an adjunct professor of general public relations at the University of Southern California, created a media teaching guide for young actors in Nickelodeon television demonstrates and films, and media qualified hundreds of gurus outdoors of Hollywood, from elected officials and lawyers to CEOs. He was also a passionate activist for LGBTQ legal rights and Jewish will cause.
In 2021, he donated $1 million to create the Howard Bragman Coming Out Fund at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, on the 50th anniversary of the school’s Spectrum Heart, an LGBTQ assistance useful resource.
“I want to guarantee that other individuals get that exact access that I experienced existence-changing, lifestyle-saving accessibility,” he told the school’s paper at the time. “I never treatment how liberal the faculty is. I don’t treatment how accepting and loving your moms and dads are. I really do not treatment how ‘woke’ the periods are. Coming out is this most private of journeys, and it is a hard journey.”
Bragman is survived by his partner Mike Maimone, his brother Alan and nieces and nephews. They questioned that in lieu of flowers, for mourners to take into account donating to the Coming Out Fund founded in his title.
