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Alex Kuczynski | |
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| Born | Alexandra Louise Kuczynski (1970-12-06)December 6, 1970 (age 54) |
| Education | Barnard College (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, writer |
| Father | Pedro Pablo Kuczynski |
| Relatives | John Casey (uncle) Joseph E. Casey (grandfather) Maxime Hans Kuczyński (grandfather) |
Alexandra Louise Kuczynski (born December 6, 1970) is a Peruvian American reporter, who has written for theNew York Times and theNew York Times Magazine, and is the author of the award-winning 2006 bookBeauty Junkies about the cosmetic surgery industry. The book was translated into ten languages.
Her father,Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Lima,[1] is an economist and politician, who was the 66thPresident of Peru. Her mother is Jane Dudley Casey, daughter ofJoseph E. Casey, member of the U.S. House forMassachusetts's 3rd congressional district. Kuczynski's paternal grandfather was physician specializing in tropical diseasesMaxime Hans Kuczyński, aJewish emigrant from Germany, who founded the firstleper colony in South America.[2] Her maternal uncle is novelist and translatorJohn Casey and her paternal first cousin once removed is French film director and screenwriterJean-Luc Godard.
After graduating fromBarnard College in 1990, she became a journalist with theNew York Observer and then theNew York Times. On September 10, 2001, she was transferred byHowell Raines from media reporter to the style section, where Kuczynski would write "the sort of pop-feature pieces that would appeal to theTimes national audience."[3] She has been described as "a giddy blast. She always would have 10 ideas at story meetings and eight of them would be terrible and two would be brilliant."[4] Under her byline, the word "horny" first appeared in theTimes, in reference to a story about femaleViagra; she later said, "I wear that as a badge of honor."[5]
Kuczynski married investor Charles Porter Stevenson Jr. in 2002, with whom she has two children.[1] He initiated divorce proceedings against her in 2019.[6] She is estimated to have a net worth of $75 million.
In 2006, she authored a book about the growth of the cosmetic surgery business:[7]Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Plastic Surgery (ISBN 978-0-385-50853-7). Reviewers have noted that readers of the book "may take a pass after reading this exposé about extreme makeovers."[8] Kuczynski concluded, "Looks are the new feminism, an activism of aesthetics. As vulgar and shallow as it sounds, looks matter more than they ever have—especially for women. When Eleanor Roosevelt was asked if she had any regrets in life, she said that she had one: she wished she had been prettier."[9]
Alex Kuczynski.
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