Howard Bragman, a decades-long veteran of leisure PR, has died of Leukemia, in line with a journal entry by his boyfriend Mike Maimone. He was 66.
“The enormity of our shared loss can’t be overstated — Howard was a continuing in so lots of our lives and the brightest star in his broad constellation of family and friends,” Maimone wrote.
Bragman’s dying was additionally confirmed by a person who labored carefully with the publicist. The information, which initially arrived by way of social media tributes late on Saturday, Feb. 11, comes as a shock to the group of journalists and public relations professionals who labored carefully with Bragman in his many alternative capacities. Bragman labored in PR for over 40 years, co-founding the agency BNC (Bragman Nyman Cafarelli), which was later merged with PMK, after which his personal Fifteen Minutes PR and, later in life, LaBrea Media.
His shoppers have included Cameron Diaz, Paula Abdul, Stevie Marvel, Sharon Osbourne, Monica Lewinsky, Joe Manganiello, Anna Kendrick, Terrence Howard, Ricki Lake and Melissa Rivers, amongst many others. Later in his profession, he segued into disaster administration and was typically featured as an professional on tv, showing as a information guide for ABC Information, in addition to an on-air professional for applications like “Good Morning America,” “TODAY” and “Larry King Dwell.” Bragman published a book, “The place’s My Fifteen Minutes?: Get Your Firm, Your Trigger, or Your self the Recognition You Deserve,” in 2008.
Born and raised in Michigan, he graduated the College of Michigan in 1978 and labored in Chicago first, then Los Angeles for Burson-Marsteller Public Relations. He based Bragman Nyman Cafarelli (BNC) in 1989 and exited after it was bought by Interpublic Group in 2001. Bragman served an Adjunct Professor in Public Relations on the College of Southern California’s Annenberg Heart for Communication from 1998 to 2003. In 2005, he launched Fifteen Minutes.
In 2010, Bragman appeared on an episode of “The Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills” as Camille Grammer’s consultant. That very same 12 months, he was a visitor choose on the inaugural season 1 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Bragman was adept at navigating public scandal for his shoppers — he was all the time available to the press at news-breaking moments and was well-respected for his wit and insights into the world of spin. As an overtly homosexual government and staunch advocate of LGBTQ causes, he additionally suggested a variety of celebrities, together with actor Meredith Baxter, basketball participant Sheryl Swoopes and nation singer Chely Wright, on popping out.
In recent times, he was energetic in exposing the water crisis in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, contributing to the documentary “Lead and Copper” by Glen Zipper and Paul Haggis.
In 2021, Bragman contributed a $1 million endowment to establish the Howard Bragman Coming Out Fund on the facilities of the University of Michigan, which embody the Spectrum Heart, a LGBTQIA+ help heart, which was shaped in 1970. In saying the fund, he shared, “As a fats, Jewish, homosexual child in Flint, Michigan, I all the time felt like a Martian. … This campus permits you to be your self. It permits you to unfold your wings in the best way you need to unfold your wings. I inform individuals, ‘Keep robust, even when it hurts.’ And, I promise, it hurts typically. However, there are locations that may assist you to ease the ache typically. That’s what the Spectrum Heart did. That’s what Michigan did.”
Bragman continued: “I don’t care how liberal the varsity is. I don’t care how accepting and loving your mother and father are. I don’t care how ‘woke’ the occasions are. Popping out is that this most private of journeys, and it’s a difficult journey,” he stated. “It’s so vital for college kids to know they don’t seem to be alone and that the Spectrum Heart is there for them. … It was based solely two years after Stonewall, which we have a look at because the start of the fashionable LGBTQIA+ rights motion. So the middle just isn’t a flash within the pan. … I need to guarantee that different individuals get that very same entry that I had; life-changing, life-saving entry.”
