Graydon Carter

Graydon Carter studied at Carleton University and University of Ottawa. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is journalism. Residence is recorded at New York City. Employment is recorded with Vanity Fair, Time and Life. Distinctions recorded are Member of the Order of Canada.

• Name — Graydon Carter • Honorific Suffix — CM • Birth Name — Edward Graydon Carter • Born — 14 July 1949 • Birthplace — Toronto, Ontario, Canada • Occupation — Magazine editor, media founder • Title — Editor-in-chief, Vanity Fair (1992–2017) • Children — 5

In a 2026 interview by Gyles Brandreth, Carter confirmed he has two siblings and that he was born on July 14, 1949. He was named after his father Edward, who was married to his mother, Margaret Carter. His birthplace was Toronto. His father had been a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot. After World War II, the family relocated to Germany for four-years, where Carter was cared for by a local nanny, then they returned to Canada and resided in Trenton, Ontario. At age 19, Carter worked at Symington Yard in Winnipeg as a railroad "groundman, at $2.20 an hour" (rather than as a higher-paid lineman because he "had a fear of heights"). During this time, he pretended to be Jewish. He explained, "I was reading a lot of Kerouac and a lot of Ginsberg... and I thought, If you’re going to be an intellectual in New York, you gotta be Jewish." Carter, while attending the University of Ottawa, and Carleton University, married for the first time, but did not graduate from either college.

In 1973, Carter co-founded The Canadian Review (TCR), a general interest monthly magazine. By 1977, TCR had become award-winning, and the third-largest magazine of its type in Canada. Despite its critical success, TCR was bankrupt by 1978, reportedly owing $100,000. In 1978, Carter moved to the United States and began working for Time magazine as a writer-trainee, where he met Kurt Andersen. Carter spent five years writing for Time on the topics of business, law, and entertainment before moving to Life in 1983.

In 1986, Carter, Kurt Andersen, and Thomas L. Phillips Jr. founded the "hip humor magazine", Spy, which premiered in print in October 1986, after a $2.8-3.0 million initial fund-raising round (including $30,000 from Phillips Jr.'s father). They ran Spy until February 1991, when European investors Charles Saatchi and Jean-Christophe Pigozzi acquired a majority stake in the company. Carter and Phillips exited immediately and Anderson left two years later. Ultimately, publication of Spy came to an end in 1998. During the final years of Spy, Carter was an editor at The New York Observer, subsequently rebranded The Observer.

• Illustration — Carter in a publicity shot for Vanity Fair In 1992, S. I. Newhouse, the chairman of Condé Nast, gave Carter the choice of editing either Vanity Fair or The New Yorker. Carter chose The New Yorker, with his salary to be set at $600,000. The morning he was to be announced as the editor of The New Yorker, however, it was decided (with the reasons why being unclear) that Tina Brown, who was then editing Vanity Fair, would be the new editor of The New Yorker, and that Carter would take over at Vanity Fair. Carter took the helm of Vanity Fair from Brown in July 1992. Carter's Vanity Fair combined high-profile celebrity cover stories with serious journalism, identifying Mark Felt, as the Deep Throat (Watergate) source and a focus on Jeffrey Epstein's profile, in 2003. Carter was depicted with an idiosyncratic personal style, in the book, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, by former Vanity Fair contributing editor, Toby Young and in a 2008 film adaptation of that book, Jeff Bridges portrayed a character closely based on Carter. On September 6, 2017, Carter announced his departure from the editorship of Vanity Fair in interview with The New York Times, he stated he would be on a "garden leave" until the end of 2017. Since leaving the magazine in 2017, Carter spends part of each year living in France with his third wife.

In a 2015 The Daily Beast article, former Vanity Fair journalist Vicky Ward wrote that she had interviewed the family of two young sisters (later identified as Annie and Maria Farmer) and discovered credible reports of molestation amidst a 2003 profile assignment on financier Jeffrey Epstein. The allegations were—Carter claimed in communications with David Folkenflik of NPR—removed from the profile as they did not meet the magazine's legal threshold for publication at the time.

In 2019, Carter co-launched a weekly newsletter with Alessandra Stanley, John Tornow (CTO), and Bill Keenan (COO) called Air Mail. In 2025, Air Mail was acquired by Puck. As of October 2025, Carter was believed to be leaving Air Mail as part of the deal.

In 2009 Carter and Jeff Klein became partners in the Monkey Bar, a New York City bar and restaurant eatery with a history dating to 1936. Both men sold their interest in the property in 2020. As of this date, Carter was a co-owner, with his third wife, Anna Scott, of The Waverly Inn in the West Village.

• Illustration — Carter and his wife Anna Scott in New York City in 2010 Carter has married three times. His first wife was French Canadian; they divorced in his 20s, during his time in Canada. He moved to the United States at the age of 28, his second marriage to Cynthia Williamson, (a paralegal) lasted 18 years, producing four children, Ash, Max, Spike, and Bronwyn. Carter and Williamson separated in July 2000, divorcing amicably and in 2003, he began dating a British woman, Anna Scott, with a background in fashion who is 18 years, his junior. They married at his Roxbury, Estate in 2005; and have one child, a daughter, Isabella Rose, born in 2008. Carter is a dual national of Canada and the US. In a 2003 interview, Carter described himself as a libertarian. Carter splits his time between, France, Greenwich Village and Roxbury, Connecticut.