The godmother of gossip: Famed New York columnist Cindy Adams, 91, dishes dirt on her close friendships with dictators, dilettantes and 'The Donald' in new docuseries

'I’m New York, you don’t like it, go screw yourself!' says the brusque, always-unapologetic, inimitable queen of gossip, Cindy Adams. 

The 91-year-old wisecracking grand dame of tattle has been a Big Apple mainstay for the last 40 years. Now Adams and her iconic column for the New York Post is the centerpiece of a new Showtime docuseries titled, Gossip.  

Sitting in her splendid Park Avenue penthouse, Adams tells director Jenny Carchman the story of how she went from a poor Brooklyn beauty queen to the 'sustaining heartbeat' of New York City as its most enduring celebrity columnist.  

Her colossal black book overflows with connections to presidents, politicians, moguls, movie-stars, mistresses, scoundrels, royals, heiresses and dictators. 

She's a life-long intimate of Donald Trump, best friends with Judge Judy and pal to some of history's most questionable and sordid characters: Roy Cohn, Imelda Marcos, Leona Helmsley, the Shah of Iran, General Manuel Noriega - the more controversial the better. 

For the last four decades, the indefatigable Cindy Adams has devoted five hours a day, six days a week to sniffing out juicy scoops and circulating them in print - always with her catchphrase coda: 'Only in New York, kids, only in New York.'

The legendary New York Post gossip columnist, Cindy Adams, 91 is the focus of a new four part docuseries titled, Gossip. Sitting in the office of her splendid Park Avenue penthouse (once owned by Doris Duke); Cindy tells the story of how she went from a poor Brooklyn pageant queen to the reigning queen of gossip

'Only in New York, kids, only in New York.' In the documentary, Adams explains how her famous catchphrase was born after she saw a 'great aged madame in furs' on Park Avenue walking her micro-sized dachshund. 'She was screaming at him 'Don't you understand English?!' to a German dog, and I thought, 'That's only in New York' 

Adams points to some of the front page splashes from her 40-year-long career at the New York Post. She said: 'I had all the top stories, like 500 front pages; it should have been in the Guinness book'

Cindy Adams greets an old friend and fellow journalist, Barbara Walters at the opening night of a Broadway play. Cindy says her 'scoops' haven't stopped since she started her column in 1981. 'Everyone gossips, it comes from underneath the door, it comes in packages, it never stops'

In no uncertain terms, Cindy Adams tells the documentary: 'Donald. Is. My. Friend.' They have been close intimates for almost 50 years after initially meeting during an intimate dinner party hosted by Roy Cohn. 'I would do whatever Donald told me,' she said. 'If somebody's been my friend, I will pay them back forever'

'If the average person knows something secretive or interesting, what good is it if nobody knows they know it?' says Adams, while taking cameras on a tour of her palatial 4,200 square foot penthouse. 

'I had all the top stories,' she says. 'Like 500 front pages; it should have been in the Guinness book.'  

Adams points to some of the front page splashes that wallpaper every inch of her boudoir-turned-office

'Woody!' she exclaims, using a diamond encrusted New York Yankees championship ring finger to point to an old cover of Woody Allen. 'I had dinner with him two nights ago.' 

The ring was a personal gift from the baseball chief, George Steinbrenner. 'It was New York to New Yorker,' she once said. 

Like a lot of veteran New Yorkers, Cindy is shamelessly provincial. 'I am totally New York...you're not gonna read me in Wichita, Kansas. What the h**l do I care? I don't even know where Wichita, Kansas is!'

She lives in polychromatic splendor. Her apartment, once owned by tobacco heiress Doris Duke, is a chintz temple of chinoiserie that was decorated by Tony Duquette in the 1960s. The walls remain covered in upholstered pink silk with ruched edges - and matching bedframe, armoire, chest and window treatments.  

More importantly, the apartment which she says was 'paid for with my own money' - is a celebration of her success. A chaos of tchotchkes, memorabilia and photographs are a testament of her outsize life. 

'This is my friend Donald, he's been my friend for 50 years,' she says while pointing to a table of photographs in her foyer. 'These are all the presidents: Hillary, Clinton, Johnson, Rupert is not a president but not bad. Mayor Bloomberg who thinks he'll be president. George Bush,' she scoffs.  

Adams talks about her childhood in the documentary. A lifelong New Yorker born in 1930, she was an only child raised and adored by her mother, Jessica Sugar Heller. 

'We were not very wealthy,' she explains. Cindy's grandmother cleaned stoops in the Lower East Side and took in boarders while her mother worked as an executive secretary to make ends meet.  

'With each one of us, we moved up,' she said. 'My mother then made me whatever it is I am.' Heller was determined to not have an ugly child, 'so she fixed me up.' 

Cindy had her first illegal nose job at the age of 15, 'on some couch in Brooklyn,' she told the New York Times. She also underwent a procedure that had her hairline pulled back - and it's remained in the iconic bouffant up-do ever since. 

Cindy was enrolled in drama schools where she learned how to walk and talk - but most importantly, get rid of her thick New York accent full of five-pound-sledge heavy consonants. 'My speech is broadcast English,' she says, 'It's absolutely perfect.' 

Adams' turned Doris Duke's former boudoir into her home office when she purchased the penthouse off the tobacco heiress in 1997. The bathtub and vanity mirror still exists among the ephemera from Cindy's larger-than-life career

A self described 'ugly child,' Adams said her mother turned her into a beauty queen with an illegal nose job and procedure to pull her hairline back when she was 15-years-old. 'I was Miss everything,' she says - Miss Upswept Hairdo, Miss Brooklyn Dodgers, Miss Bazooka Bubble Gum, Miss New Jersey and Miss Bagel of the Brooklyn Better Bagel Bakers Bureau. 'I mean is that something you wanna have on your gravestone?' she laughs

Adams met 'Borscht Belt' comedian, Joey Adams when she was teenager and credits him with launching her career, saying 'The world opened up to me at the age of 17.' Joey knew every celebrity in town as the brother-in-law of legendary gossip columnist, Walter Winchell and adopted son of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. 'Joey was in the Stork Club in those days and he knew the Frank Sinatras of the world.' They married in 1952 and never had children

Cindy Adams became close with 'presidents, kings, and emperors' while on a cultural exchange program of south east Asia. The tour was organized by President Kennedy and Joey Adams headlined the show. Above, Cindy sits with Indonesian strongman, Sukarno, whom she later wrote a memoir titled, My Friend the Dictator. Broadway publicist, Rick Miramontez told the documentary: 'I don't know what it is about authoritarians that Cindy loves, but she's got a lot of them and the biggest ones are her friends'

The Adams Family: Joey penned a popular comedy column for the newspaper in the late 1970s called 'Strictly for Laughs' - this eventually paved the way for Cindy's gossip column in 1981. 'In other words, we were the beginnings of their New York, so we grew up with The Post.'  For this reason, Cindy says she remains very 'loyal' to the newspaper 

For this, Cindy is eternally grateful to her mother, she told New York Magazine: 'My mother was wonderful to me. She. Created. Me.'

By the time she was 17, Cindy was a working pageant model, winning beauty contests all over town. 'I was Miss everything,' she tells the documentary. Among her many titles are: Miss Upswept Hairdo, Miss Brooklyn Dodgers, Miss Bazooka Bubble Gum, Miss New Jersey and Miss Bagel of the Brooklyn Better Bagel Bakers Bureau. 'I mean is that something you wanna have on your gravestone?' she laughs.    

Reading aloud an article from her modelling heyday in 1947, Cindy is declared the 'girl that police reporters would most like to be found dead with.' 

Part of Cindy's charm is that teases herself just as easily as she does anyone else. Her pithy, wisecracking column reads a lot like the compelling person she presents on camera. 'No matter what anyone wants to say about me, I'm not mean,' she says. 'I'm fun, my column is to entertain.'    

The 91-year-old gossipeuse credits her late husband, the vaudeville comedian Joey Adams, with launching her career.  'He was not a number one, like Seinfeld, or in those days, Bob Hope,' she said. 'He was a number two, but he had a number one lifestyle.' 

As the brother-in-law of legendary gossip columnist Walter Winchell and adopted son of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia - Joey Adams offered Cindy the keys to New York City.

He was a habitué of the exclusive Stork Club, where café society dined alongside celebrities, politicians and glitterati. It was dubbed the 'New Yorkiest spot in town' and Joey Adams was pals with Franks Sinatra, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and the Kennedys. 

'The nose came from my mother. But my career came because I married Joey,' she once wrote. 

Joey was president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, which meant he had access to every celebrity in town. 'The world opened up to me at the age of 17,' explained Cindy in the series. 

They got married in 1952 when Joey was almost 20 years Cindy's senior and the couple never had kids. 'I had married into a good life, I had a husband who was comfortable, I had money.' Joey was 'someone who would love me, take care of me like my mother would. You know what that does? That gives you security. That gives you the backbone so you're not scared.'   

In 1961, Cindy accompanied Joey on a tour of southeast Asia, as part of a cultural exchange program organized by President Kennedy. 'I was still nobody,' says Cindy in the series. 'I was just a little girl that was schlepping around with Joey Adams.'

Through this, Cindy was introduced to the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines and the Indonesian strongman Sukarno (with whom she forged a close friendship with and later wrote a memoir titled My Friend the Dictator).  

Adams poses for a photo in her palatial 4,200 square foot Park Avenue penthouse. In the docuseries, she says: 'There is a certain amount of power that you have if you're on a newspaper. Once I got the column, I was hungry to make my mark, and I went after the big big stories' 

For the last forty years, Adams has devoted six days a week to sniffing out juicy scoops for her column - covering everything from red carpets, backstage dramas, galas and intimate dinner parties - always with a notepad and pen in hand

Adams showcases how she meticulously organizes her colossal rolodex of contacts on index cards that also note dates, subjects and stories

Her social connections to celebrities, royals and politicians eventually turned into a juggernaut for the New York Post with her own column in 1981. 'Rupert's editors were very smart,' she said, 'But they didn't have the rolodex. We had the rolodex.'

Her big break happened accidentally, in December 1979 when she cancelled dinner plans with a New York Post editor to visit the deposed Shah of Iran on his deathbed in a New York hospital. It was the scoop everyone was dying to get.

They talked for two hours, 'I thought if I don't get out of here, I'll kill myself; how much conversation can you have the shah?' The report of Cindy's visit landed her first front page exclusive under the byline 'The Post's Own Cindy Adams.' 

The rest was history. 

Around this late 1970s, Cindy met Donald Trump who was still in the early days of his real estate career. They were introduced at a dinner party thrown by the infamous lawyer known to history as 'evil incarnate' - Roy Cohn. 

Standing next to Donald Trump on election night in 2016, the veteran gossip columnist recalled what Cohn said to her all those years before: 'One day, this kid is going to own New York.'  

Like his protégé, Cohn had a preternatural understanding of the news cycle and learned to manipulate the tabloid spotlight for his personal gain. He was also, according to AJ Benza in GOSSIP, 'Page Six's number one source.'

It was through another personal connection that Cindy nabbed an interview with the reviled Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega. She recalls the intimidating two-day trip to South America in her trademark glib: 'I don't even know what to ask him! Where is Panama? You go to Bermuda, you make a left - where the h**l is Panama?'  

The two remained unlikely friends until his death in 2017. 'I knew him when he ran his country. I knew him when our country ran him.'  

Cindy has a soft spot for dictators. 'I don't know what it is about authoritarians that Cindy loves, but she's got a lot of them and the biggest ones are her friends,' says her longtime friend and Broadway publicist, Rick Miramontez to Showtime. Cindy rationalizes this by explaining that she is always on the lookout for a fresh take on an old story. To report the status quo, in her opinion, would be boring.  

At Joey's lavish 80th birthday party, Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Roy Cohn, Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley were among the many guests. The joke of the night was, 'If you're indicted, you're invited.' 

Indeed Cindy shared a close bond with Imelda Marcos, the 'Marie Antoinette' of the Philippines who was accused of looting billions of dollars from the Filipino people. Recalling some of their fond memories in Page Six, Cindy talks about the time she hid in a bathroom when Doris Duke came over to Marcos' Upper East Side townhome with $5million bail.  

'I didn't think she had done anything so wrong, and with my mentality, if she had done something wrong, so what! She's one of my friends!' 

'If you're indicted, you're invited': Cindy Adams poses for a photo with her husband and former friend-turned-foe Leona Helmsley at Joey's 80th birthday party in which Imelda Marcos, John Gotti, Roy Cohn, Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley were among the many guests

Before Cindy Adams, there was Liz Smith who wrote a popular gossip column for the rival newspaper, The New York Daily News. She was syndicated to 70 different publications across the country. Cindy told Showtime: 'Liz Smith was the queen and I was not, I was just a little princess'

Australian newspaper man, Rupert Murdoch purchased the New York Post in 1976. Cindy tells the doc, 'Rupert's  editors were very smart, but they didn't have the rolodex.' Her social connections to celebrities, royals and politicians eventually turned into a juggernaut for the Post with her own column in 1981

For what many people think is her failing, Cindy is unshakably loyal to those she considers friends - and Donald Trump is one of them.

She has attended all three of his weddings and extensively covered both of his divorces. When news broke out that Trump was caught cheating with his mistress on a family vacation in Aspen, Cindy said: 'Did I know Donald was cheating? Of course! He was cheating from the day he was born, that's Donald! But Donald is my friend so I wouldn't have printed it.' 

The divorce became headline fodder for tabloids. In Donald's corner, was Cindy Adams for the New York Post who published unflattering stories about Ivana with screaming titles like 'GIMME THE PLAZA...the jet and $150million too.' In Ivana's corner was the rival queen of gossip, Liz Smith for the New York Daily News. 

'I would do whatever Donald told me' she told the documentary. That includes helping him drum up business for Trump Tower with false speculation that Princess Diana was considering an apartment. Cindy clarifies: 'I didn't say she did move, I said she was maybe going to.' 

'You can get away with anything,' she says, while revealing some of her legal tricks that slip the noose of a potential libel suit. Phrases like 'it is rumored that' or 'what you're hearing people whisper about' and 'allegedly.'  

To be fair, Donald Trump has also been a good friend to Cindy. She recounts to Gossip, a rare moment of kindness by the former president when he chartered his chopper for Cindy to spread Joey's ashes over Central Park after his death in 1999. Trump also paid to install a security system in Cindy's apartment to make sure she was safe.  

'If somebody has been my friend, I will pay them back forever,' says Cindy, adding in no uncertain terms: 'DONALD. IS. MY. FRIEND.' 

On the flip side, Cindy can be merciless, 'If someone is evil to me, then I will pay them back in this life or the next one.' 

When her former friend-turned-foe, Leona Helmsley (the infamous 'Queen of Mean') mistreated Cindy's ailing mother; Cindy fought back with a fusillade of unflattering headlines. 'I explained to Leona, 'I will see to it that you are assassinated, I will kill you maybe myself,' she recalls in a menacing voice. 

Cindy is 'a woman who loves with the same intensity as she hates,' explained another decades-long friend Judge Judy. 'If you are within her circle of love, you can sleep easy knowing that she will do everything in her power to keep you safe. If you get on Cindy’s bad side, however, you better keep one eye open.'  

New York Magazine editor, Christopher Bonanos described Cindy as 'the last person on the island who speaks the language of a lost population.' Her speedy, rat-a-tat-tat style is born from the city she loves. 

To quote Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager Cindy is 'the lighthouse of New York. She’s up there with the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.'