Ghislaine Maxwell or Diane Warren? The Internet Can’t Decide

Diane Warren can’t catch a break. As if coming home empty-handed after 16 competitive Oscar nominations — eight consecutive losses since 2018 — weren’t annoying enough, she’s now dealing with the indignity of being mistaken for Jeffrey Epstein’s incarcerated co-conspirator. When the 69-year-old songwriter — a perennial awards contender for such movie tunes as “The Fire Inside” and “Somehow You Do” — turned up at the Feb. 1 Grammys wearing a white blazer, oversized sunglasses and her signature helmet-style do, some online observers confused her with convicted pedophile Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving 20 years in federal prison. 

“What? Is this today? Why isn’t she in jail?” one befuddled poster asked on X. Noted another: “Thought she escaped jail or something.” 

The posts were first picked up by British tabloid OK! and quickly went viral. Warren herself is dumbfounded by the bizarre case of mistaken identity. “The idea that they’d let Ghislaine Maxwell out of prison to attend the Grammys — for like, what? Good behavior? I can’t believe anybody would be stupid enough to think that was true,” she tells Rambling. “Actually, I can believe it.”

To the degree that there is any genuine resemblance, it’s mostly in the hair — Warren and Maxwell share a similar middle-ish part, no-nonsense short style. But Warren says she has no intention of altering her look when she attends the Oscars on March 15 for her 17th nomination, for the song “Dear Me,” from her documentary Diane Warren: Relentless. “I like my hair,” she says. “And I can’t really do a whole lot else with it. I’ll just try to stay out of jail.”

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Also in Rambling Reporter:

A look into how New York is deadlier on TV than in real life; Rambling Reporter investigates the mystery of Jeff Bezos’ shaggy shrubberies, which flagrantly flout city ordinances.

This story appeared in the Feb. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.