Bret Easton Ellis has candidly asked “how the f*** anyone can live” in New York City while condemning the city he used to call home.
The American Psycho author, 58, recently returned to New York City for the first time in years to promote his new book The Shards. However, rather than enjoy his return to the city where his most famous novel is set, Ellis lamented the various problems he’d encountered since he arrived back in Manhattan.
Ellis spoke openly about his distaste for the metropolis during an interview with Vanity Fair, during which he revealed that the only thing he’d wanted to do after a promotional talk in Brooklyn about his new book was return to his hotel.
“I just wanted to come back to my hotel room, order some room service, have a glass of wine, get into bed with the food channel on, check my emails,” Ellis said.
During the interview, which took place in the lobby of his hotel, the author also expressed his apparent disbelief that there are people who choose to live in New York City.
“I arrived Wednesday night during this horrible storm, and then the usual problems of getting your luggage, an hour waiting at Delta carousel, and then the ride into New York,” Ellis said. “I thought, How does anyone live here? How in the f*** does anyone live here?”
Ellis didn’t always hate New York City, however, as the author, who lived in New York for almost two decades, told the outlet that he enjoyed living in the city during the 90s.
“It was a glorious time to be in New York,” Ellis recalled. “I talk to a lot of people who just simply agree - to be youngish and living in New York during that period, and to be involved in the magazine world, the glorious magazine world.”
However, Ellis, who has only spent a handful of days in New York City since he moved back to Los Angeles, California, where he grew up, in 2005, claimed the city changed after he left.
During the interview, Ellis recalled seeing the “change” during a trip to New York City in 2016, which had marked the first time he’d been to the city “in at least 10 years”.
According to Ellis, although he moved to Los Angeles, he still owns the apartment he bought in the American Felt Building in 1987. However, he has not slept in the apartment since 2004.
“I had to get some stuff out of storage, and I wanted to meet the new tenant because I’ve been renting it out for years and years and years…. Around Fourth Avenue, 13th Street, I looked up from my phone and I suddenly panicked. I told the driver: ‘You’re in the wrong area…We’re going to 13th Street between Third and Fourth.’ He said: ‘This is it,’” Ellis recalled. “I couldn’t believe the change.”
The author recently returned to his East Village neighbourhood again, which he told Vanity Fair he now doesn’t recognise at all.
On social media, Ellis’ comments divided fans, with one person suggesting the “young Bret Easton Ellis would have laughed at old Bret Easton Ellis” for criticising the city.
“Young @BretEastonEllis would have laughed at old @BretEastonEllis hunkered down in his hotel room whining about delays at the airport and traffic into the city and how NYC (which he made millions writing about) was SO much better when he was in his 20s living here,” they wrote.
