Chrissy Iley is renowned for her intimate celebrity profiles published in the Sunday Times Magazine, Observer Magazine, You Magazine, Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar. She was awarded Interviewer of the Year in the 2008 British Press Awards, received for her work on Demi Moore, The Police and Keira Knightley.
Chrissy started her interviewing career twenty years ago when she realised she had a peculiar gift - people, including celebrities, wanted to tell her things. When Courtney Love does an interview with anyone else she asks her publicist, “Can we Chrissy Ileyise this?”meaning can we make it interesting.
Chrissy has been known to take subjects hostage for hours if not days including Dustin Hoffman, one of her first interviews, who wanted to talk about the difference between men and women but ended up in a mutual foot massage. Others on the list of willing interviewees have been Helen Mirren, Mel Gibson, Alicia Keys, Harrison Ford, Anjelica Houston, Lily Allen, Yoko Ono, Barbra Streisand, Michael Douglas, Elton John, Cherie Blair, Hilary Swank, Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, John Travolta, Susan Sarandon and Renee Zellwegger, a former neighbour of Chrissy's whose cat Grady was a present from Chrissy when her own cat had kittens.
Victoria Beckham, Johnny Depp and Bono are favourites among her subjects.
As well as her gift for probing her subjects face to face, Chrissy made her mark as a columnist for the long running and iconic column Relationship of the Week in Sunday Times Style. She also had a pseudonymous column in the same magazine under the name Hairbitch, discussing the hidden psychology of celebrities and their hair. Chrissy has made many guest appearances in a variety of documentaries and appeared on stage at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, interviewing Julian Clary for his show An Audience with Julian Clary.
Chrissy divides her time between London and Los Angeles. They like the way she can be both feisty and sympathetic.