Nicole Egan

Nicki Egan is an award-winning journalist and former People magazine senior writer who was the first reporter in the country to dig deeply into the Bill Cosby scandal in 2005 when other reporters shied away. Starting from scratch she was able to quickly become sourced and began breaking exclusive stories. When the scandal bubbled up again in October 2014 she was able to quickly reconnect with those victims and sources and began breaking exclusive stories once again, including the news of Cosby’s arrest on Dec. 30, 2015. She continues to get interviews with accusers who have never spoken and develop leads on new angles.

Nicole Egan’s refusal to back down on the Cosby story is not surprising. She has a 28-year record of going up against the nation’s most powerful people to expose wrongdoing. When she was a political reporter in Washington, D.C., first for States News Service then as the Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Daily News, she dug into connections between the congressional delegations she covered and how they spent their campaign money as well as who was contributing to their campaigns and what they got in exchange for those contributions. She broke several national stories including an exclusive interview with Teresa Heinz about why she had decided not to run for the U.S. Senate seat of her late husband, John, and former Chrysler Corporation Chairman Lee Iacocca’s rejection of an offer to serve as the interim senator after Sen. Heinz died in a plane crash.​

Egan’s extraordinary work on the Cosby story in 2005 caught the eye of People magazine, which signed her up as a freelancer and later hired her. During her 12 years at People, where she rose to be a senior writer, Egan honed her reputation for obtaining exclusive interviews on some of the nation’s most high-profile crime, human-interest, and medical stories.

I feel like I have known Nicole Egan all my life, yet have never met her. One of my favorite things to do when I visited the chiropractor, physiotherapist, or my family doctor was to read People Magazine. Nicole wrote some of the most fascinating stories for People.

Here is what I admire about her. On Instagram, I sent her a message that I wanted to interview her. She replied right away. I have to be honest. I was trembling with fear, as I was framing questions for one of the best interviewers and writers of our generations. She was humble and answered all my questions right away. Nicki recently published her first book, Chasing Cosby, and is working on her second book while freelancing and pursuing books, movies, and TV opportunities.

Nicki, I consider it an honor, pleasure, and privilege to have you on board. In all my years going to the dentist’s office, chiropractor, massage therapist, and the family doctor, I must say I have read every episode of the People magazine and all of your articles. Talk to me about your passion for chasing stories that define our time and culture?

Hi there. I’ve always loved chasing the stories no one else is-either by reporting on a big news story and getting an interview no one else could yet or digging into an injustice I found through regular beat reporting and exposing it to readers. My stories at the Philadelphia Daily News freed several innocent men and also led to new laws being enacted. My Cosby coverage of 2005, alas, led to absolutely nothing because of Cosby’s power and influence. He was able to get the rest of the media to back off the story and the DA, for whatever reason, never did a full investigation of the case back then, even though there were 14 women accusing him in 2005.

You are one of the top investigative journalists in the US. People just trust you. They open up to you. What do you bring to the table that has that effect on people?

I work hard to gain the trust of the people I interview and I will not betray that trust for anyone – not even my editors. I also have a lot of empathy and, since I tend to cover very tragic stories, I think that comes through when I’m interviewing people.

What advice do you have for women who want to become journalists?

Go for it! The industry has more challenges than ever but if it’s your passion, you should do it. Just have a backup plan or save your money in case you’re laid off, which happens to even the best, hardest-working journalists these days.

Help me understand what does women’s empowerment means to you?

Women’s empowerment means the freedom to make your own choices – about your career, your marital status, and whether you want to have children.

You have a new book coming out next year. Talk to me about it?

I co-authored it with Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn, the subjects of the book. After Denise was kidnapped from his home and Aaron reported it to the police, they questioned him for 17 hours, convinced he’d actually murdered her. Meanwhile, Denise was being held by one of the kidnappers and raped. Twice. And when the kidnapper let her go, the police didn’t believe her either and believed they made the whole story up and even said so in a press conference they held that night. The story is so outrageous on so many levels but Denise and Aaron are true heroes and they prevailed in the end. One of the kidnappers was caught three months later after trying to do the same thing to another couple. Denise and Aaron sued the police for defamation and won but the FBI, which took over the kidnapping case, to this day refuses to acknowledge there were other people involved in the kidnapping and home invasion.

I want to know what you want to be remembered for? What is your legacy?

I believe my legacy is always keeping an open mind on every story I cover, doing all of the research I can do for every story I cover and exposing wronging when I see it, no matter who’s behind it. I was a Bill Cosby fan when the story first broke in 2005. I didn’t want to believe he’d do such a thing but I had to put my personal feelings aside and get to what the truth is. I’ve done that with other stories as well, in some cases where I think the media just flat-out got it wrong – like with the Jeffrey MacDonald case, the Green Beret surgeon who was convicted of murdering his wife and two children in 1970 at Fort Bragg, NC but to this day says he’s innocent. There’s a lot of evidence pointing to intruders being the culprit and a lot of misconduct by prosecutors but because there was a bestselling book (Fatal Vision) about it that painted him as a monster, it’s a hard thing to overcome in the court of public opinion. People are rabid about their beliefs when it comes to this case. And I have to say I, too, believed Jeffrey MacDonald was guilty when I first started reporting on the story in 2012 but after years of doing my own research and reporting, I’m not so sure anymore. But just try to convince those in the media that is possible. I remember going back and forth with my editor at PEOPLE about it and I finally said, ‘Well, no one believed Bill Cosby was a rapist in 2005 either.’ It’s so frustrating. It’s one thing if someone has done their own research and digging and comes to that conclusion. It’s another if they’re basing it on a very, very flawed book that was written before a lot of new evidence became available.

Your stories have won so many awards and the story on Maynard’s death got 16 million hits. Is there a story in the last 2000 years you would have liked to have covered and why?

Nope. I have never enjoyed covering tragedies-it was just my job to cover them- so there is no news story out there I wish I’d covered. I wish I’d had more time throughout my career to just do investigative journalism but I always had to juggle doing it with doing a lot of other stories at the same time.

As a society, we are fascinated with cultural icons. What is it about us that never want to question them, their crime, or motives?

America has a celebrity worshiping culture and interviews with them sell magazines and newspapers and attract viewers. So the public never truly get to see who these people are because these celebrities put all sorts of conditions on their interviews with the media and if you ask a question they don’t like, you and your publication (or network) will never interview that celebrity again. And, since many celebrities are represented by the same agents, it spills over into access to other celebrities as well.

It’s one of the reasons Bill Cosby was able to maintain his squeaky-clean image for decades, even though his first known victim dates back to 1965.

As a journalist, you have eaten on the go a lot. What is your favorite food and why?

Chicken fried rice. The food at the Sky Asian Bistro at the Philly airport is just amazing and I love it when I fly in or out of the terminal where it is.

You have led a busy life. How did you balance food, faith, finance, and family?

It’s tough! My PEOPLE job was 24/7 for 12 years with a lot of last-minute trips to cover horrific breaking news events so it was tough to plan anything because you had to be available to go at a moment’s notice. And since I left there I’ve been very busy on multiple projects so I’m just now catching my breath a little and trying to figure out how to do that!

Photo Credit: Steven Goldblatt