The Most Famous Girl in the World: A Novel

Copyright © 2024 by Iman Hariri-Kia

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For Willa and Mel.

Behind every Strong Female

Protagonist™ is a group chat.

I’m so lucky you’re mine.

And for my grandmother.

This one is longer and has more bad words. I miss you. I’m sorry.

Contents

Content Warning

Author’s Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Epilogue

Excerpt from Iman Hariri-Kia's next book, coming Fall 2025

Chapter One

Reading Group Guide

A Conversation with the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Content Warning

The Most Famous Girl in the World is an ode to modern celebrity culture, mass conspiracy, bandwagon-jumping, and our ability to see the best in the worst people—and vice versa. In order to examine these complex topics, this novel includes mentions of substance use disorder, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. I worked with sensitivity readers and copy editors in order to ensure that these subjects were attended to with the utmost care. It is my hope that between the lines of levity, the questions at the heart of this text will be treated with nuance and introspection. Thank you, as always, for being here.

I don’t believe in the glorification of murder, but I do believe in the empowerment of women.

—Lady Gaga

Author’s Note

Everything inside these pages is utterly, irrevocably, and without a shadow of a doubt, 100 percent true.

Trust me. I was there.

Although, between you and me,

I might have had a drink.

Or five.

—Rose Aslani

Chapter One

When I learn that Poppy Hastings (née Watts) is being released from prison, I’m in the middle of getting my asshole waxed. I know, I know—that sounds like something a person would make up for the sake of telling a good story, but in this case, it’s actually what happened.

You see, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And reality really can write itself better than any great American novel.

That’s one of the reasons I became a journalist in the first place.

Eighteen months have dragged by since Poppy was locked up at Albion Correctional Facility in upstate New York, a mere six-hour drive from the city. (You could say it’s been eighteen months since I helped put her there. But that’s neither here nor there.)

She was convicted by a unanimous jury and sentenced to five years, which I had expected to move as slowly as an East Coast winter. But the snow melted, Punxsutawney Phil saw his stupid shadow, and now spring has fucking sprung—three and half years too early.

My group chat blows up first, just like it always does. Multiple texts from my work friends turned real, best, should-we-take-a-blood-oath friends set my screen on fire. Steph (short for Estefania, but don’t you dare call her that) and Fern have heard the news, and now the texts come flooding in like intrusive thoughts. 

Omg. They’re letting her out.

They’re actually letting Poppy out early.

Rose. Are you there? This is not a drill.

911. Poppy Hastings is being released from prison.

Stop messing with me, I write back. I just went off Zoloft, you heartless wench.

I roll my eyes.

Just last week, Fern tried to convince me that she was getting back with an ex who used to exclusively sport fingerless gloves, just to see me sweat. It’s this harmless little thing we do, my friends and I. We call it pranking. Others call it lying.

It’s a game, but one we play only with each other.

Then I get the Apple News alert.

A notification pops onto my screen from The New York Dweller, the parent publication I work for, and I swear to god, the remaining hairs in my anus stand up fucking straight. I physically recoil as I process what I’m reading.

Stop moving, my aesthetician, Sherry, commands.

She’s standing behind my wide-spread legs, peering into the crevice between my butt cheeks, attempting to continue the wax. Not that anyone other than Sherry will be staring down into the depths of my asshole any time soon. Ever since Zain left, the only thing in my apartment that’s gotten even remotely close to fingered is Roommate’s god-awful violin. I don’t even know why I keep waxing. Probably because hair sprouts from every orifice of my body like I’m a walking, talking botanical garden. Or maybe because I’m a sadist. Sick in the head.

Perhaps a bit of both.

Most likely, I’m just trying to feel something—anything—other than chronic anger.

Fuck, I say to Sherry. She gives me a scolding look of death. I’m sorry.

She’s a Slovenian woman in her late fifties with broad shoulders, bright red cheeks, and a thick, syrupy accent. When Sherry asks you to do something, you do it. I both admire and fear the living daylights out of that woman.

No cursing. Sherry frowns like her job depends on it.

Shit, okay, I say. Oh no, I did it again. Fuck!

Yeah. Sherry doesn’t like me very much.

Poppy Hastings is being released from prison.

The headline plays on a loop in my head. It reverberates between my eardrums as I leave my appointment and begin the five-minute trek back to my apartment. I attempt to nudge away the words swimming around my frontal cortex the way I would evade an older relative trying to kiss me on the cheek. But they just bounce back with a grin, eager to tease and taunt me. My body is still stinging from the wax, so I place my phone in my pocket as I walk—a big journalist no-no. Heaven forbid I miss a breaking news notification. It’s no use, though. Even without the push notifications, Poppy’s name still gyrates around in my head. Goddammit.

Poppy.

Poppy Hastings.

Poppy Hastings is being released.

This is not happening to me.

I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, then try to remain present by focusing entirely on my surroundings.

A smoke shop with the door cracked open; a bodega cat without a collar peering in up and down the street with suspicion.

A mom-and-pop restaurant—simply called Fried Chicken—that sells only fried chicken.

A band of white boys dressed in tiny caps and cuffed jeans, parodying around as locals while their parents pay the rent on their newly renovated one-bedroom flexes.

Gentrification began flirting with Clinton Hill about two years before I moved here, which probably means I’m part of the problem. But I still like to shift the blame elsewhere. Partly because I’m the daughter of Iranian immigrants and was basically raised with a chip on my shoulder. And partly because I’m on the Gen Z–Millennial cusp. Pointing fingers and pouting are our favorite hobbies.

When I was a child, my classmates’ parents were hesitant to set their kids up on playdates with me. I don’t remember this, but my mother mentioned it once offhand, and it stuck with me in the way that small moments sometimes do when you’re little and still making sense of the world. I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you. You’re not my therapist. (That’s Julee. And she fired me last month. Did you know therapists could fire their clients? I sure didn’t.)

I’m also pretty much always a tiny bit broke. As a journalist, even a successful one—an illusion, by the way—you grow accustomed to being underpaid. You’re taught to be grateful for opportunities, to kiss the feet of those who came before you just for inviting you into the room. To wipe the asses of giant corporations as the board of trustees grows richer and your bank account begins to leak.

I’m a cynic.

Not that I can think of anything less original than being cynical in Brooklyn.

My apartment is a fifth-floor walk-up in a tentatively beautiful rent-controlled old brownstone that hasn’t been renovated in at least a half a century. My street is quiet, like a suburban cul-de-sac without all the friendly faces. But I do prefer my neighborhood, at the very least, to Gramercy, where I commute every day for work. Across the bridge, the noise is incessant, the air polluted, and casual, god-awful acquaintances lurk around every corner. Given the choice of being anonymous in Brooklyn or visible in Manhattan, always pick the former.

Especially if it’s all you can afford.

The radiator whistles its usual greeting as I walk through the front door. I immediately turn it off and open a window, allowing that April breeze to smack some sense into me.

Hello?

My voice reverberates through the small space, echoing back to me.

Roommate is sprawled out on our crusty green love seat, her boyfriend perched between her legs on the floor, eating ramen.

Oh, and they’re both butt-ass naked.

Sigh.

Roommate is Romanian. (I think? She has a heavy accent.) The two met while microdosing mushrooms at a guided sound bath last year and have been attached at the pierced navel ever since. Based on their attire—or lack thereof—I can tell they weren’t expecting me back so soon. When I’m home, they usually spend the majority of their time locked in their room, playing a Bartók violin concerto (badly) and crocheting pants.

The apartment belonged to me first. Roommate moved in after Zain moved out.

I was desperate; she was homeless. It was a match made in literal hell.

When I was still living in Ohio, I found an ad for this place on Craigslist. This was before I met Steph and Fern. I knew virtually no one in New York. Well, except for a few kids from J-school. But I had enough sense to know that I’d be better off licking a subway seat than inhabiting five hundred square feet with them. By the time I finally saw the place in person, I was screwed. The apartment looked much larger and much better maintained in the pictures.

It was, to be blunt, a shithole.

The bathtub had a red grime snaking its way up the drain; all of the last tenant’s dishes were piled up in the sink, waiting to be hand-washed; the largest window faced a brick wall, blocking out most of the daylight. But I’d already signed the lease and couldn’t afford to live in some four-story palace in Park Slope or whatever the fuck. At least the place has its charms. Prehistoric crown moldings on the ceiling that I was too oblivious to appreciate until Zain pointed them out. The scuffs that decorate the hardwood floor in meaningful, albeit vague, patterns. A disco ball that lives on a small Lucite coffee table, which Roommate stole at a rave in Bushwick from a girl who smelled like fish.

I never moved out. Roommate moved in.

So here we are. Coexisting.

I thought we talked about nudity in the common areas.

Roommate vaguely looks up, boredom in her eyes, and gives me a nod of acknowledgment. I toss her a blanket from the bin by the door, and she drapes it over her torso like a shawl.

Well, I tried.

I kick off my New Balances—which remind me of my elderly grandfather, but everyone at work insists they’re cool, and I know fuck all about being cool—and lie down on the floor. My mind is still racing, and rest feels urgent. The wood is cool against my cheek, if a little sticky.

What’s wrong with her? Boyfriend whispers a little too loudly.

Who knows? Roommate doesn’t bother lowering her voice. Instead she throws a noodle at me, watching me flinch. What’s wrong with you?

I haven’t checked my phone in about twenty minutes, but I feel it buzzing against my abdomen. This means one of two things: Steph and Fern think I’ve jumped in front of the G train, or I’ve missed another breaking news alert.

Probably both.

Right now, I couldn’t care less. Next to today’s top headline, everything else feels meaningless.

Poppy Hastings is being released from prison, I announce.

Ah. Roommate makes a knowing hissing sound. You’re having breakdown.

Looks like it.

She stands up, grabbing her keys and coat.

You stay. I buy vodka.

She’s not a bad roommate.

And it doesn’t take a genius to see that I’m stewing in a mess of my own making.

Because in many ways, I created Poppy Hastings, and she created me.

Chapter Two

Before Poppy, I was just an associate reporter at the Shred, the digital arm of the newspaper The New York Dweller. (We’re mostly known for our quippy headlines, which are meant to incite visceral reactions. You know, like the little internet terrorists we are.) It was a job I had basically landed out of luck. Back when I’d been a lowly freelancer, a practically unemployed graduate from The Ohio State University, a few essays I’d published on Medium had gone semiviral. They were all about growing up first-generation Iranian and therefore didn’t count as real writing. Exploitation of one’s identity, I’ve come to realize, is truly the cheapest form of clickbait. But what can I say? The industry is addicted to trauma porn, and the next thing I knew, I’d tricked the Shred into giving me an interview. I had manipulated everyone into believing I was legit enough to be a real journalist.

A true villain origin story.

But entry-level writing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The job was essentially to pen speculative garbage about internet memes, whatever news Twitter deemed important, and pointless celebrity feuds—and all for minimum wage. I intensely resented being the greenest employee on staff. At meetings, I was given the least amount of time possible to pitch my ideas. Editors assigned me the stories that nobody else wanted to write. I was the Breaking News Bitch: always on call, social life nonexistent. And while I enjoyed any excuse to get out of date night with Zain, the topics I covered ranged from vapid to mundane. By the end, I knew so much about astrological compatibility that I repulsed myself. I spent my evenings fantasizing about reporting features, touching myself to thoughts of investigative journalism instead of ethical porn.

Then one morning, some higher power or simulation nerd sent me my golden ticket.

There it was: just sitting, unassuming, in my inbox.

An anonymous tip had come in overnight from an encrypted email. The source had written only one sentence, but the message was addressed directly to me.

Not the Shred.

Not my editor.

Me.

Poppy Hastings isn’t who she says she is.

Until that very moment, I had never heard of Poppy Hastings. My life had been gloriously Poppy-free. But I got to googling. It didn’t take long for photos to start popping up in all the society pages, from Getty Images to Patrick McMullan.

Slowly, I began to piece her together.

She was an English socialite who lived in New York City with houses in the South of France, the Hamptons, and fuck knows where else. Poppy was presumably from old money, and she was involved with a plethora of charitable organizations. From the looks of it, she never missed a benefit. There were photos of her cutting the ribbon to a new Mount Sinai hospital wing on the arm of the ambassador to Kuwait, others of her laughing at the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation’s masked gala, clinking glasses with the CEO of Unicycle, a flashy exercise start-up. But her role at each event was opaque or never mentioned. Poppy herself was the face of coded luxury. She managed to fly somewhat under the radar, which isn’t rare for people with large sums of money. When you have so much wealth that you no longer feel the weight of your riches, talking about your socioeconomic status is considered déclassé.

Nevertheless, she appeared to be rubbing her elbows raw with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world.

But what on earth was their connection?

According to my research, Poppy had been silently working the circuit for almost a decade. But before her debut, there was zero record of her existence. Unlike her lack of philanthropic credibility, this made no sense. Someone who presumably had ties to British aristocracy would surely have her French-tipped little fingerprints all over an age-old lineage’s archives—or at the very least have left a record of where she attended private school. But Poppy appeared to have popped out of her mother’s vagine as a fully formed woman in her late twenties with a bottomless bank account and a tight-lipped smile.

That deliciously smug, silently judging, tight-lipped smile.

My anonymous source was right.

Something wasn’t adding up.

So I took a risk. I hadn’t yet brought up my little research project to my editor at the Shred, mostly because I knew that she’d a) tell me to stop wasting my time or b) give the story to a more senior reporter. This was my big break, and I couldn’t allow myself to get scooped by the culture-vultures. No, it was time to stop playing by the book.

I was ready to get my hands dirty.

Using my NYD email address, I began reaching out to some of the people Poppy had been photographed with, asking for a comment on a fake upcoming article. A nobody in the journo world, I fully expected never to hear back from any of them. And for the most part, I was right; many of the players I contacted never responded. Others agreed to speak with me only off the record or solely on background. A few declined my request but referred me to friends of friends—and that was how I landed my first jackpot interview.

I quickly learned that the circles of the 1 percent are minuscule; as soon as one influential source agreed to speak with me, the rest followed suit. And they weren’t just willing to talk.

They were anxious to find out what I knew.

I soon learned that no one really had a comprehensive idea of who Poppy Hastings was, where she came from, or what she did for a living. One of my sources believed her to be a distant relative of the queen; another had heard through the grapevine that her family had invented transition lenses. Not one seemed able to recall how they’d met her, either; she always just appeared to be waiting wherever the rest of the horde went. Poppy attended every gallery opening, evening at the opera, and high-profile tennis match with some dashing and atrociously wealthy suitor who waited on her hand and foot.

The way her peers described her, Poppy Hastings wasn’t just beautiful—she was iridescent. Witty, outrageously fun, and free-spirited, Poppy was that woman in the circuit who was always suggesting her comrades kick the party up a notch. The fundraiser for children with cleft palates in the Galápagos sure was lovely, but know what would be even lovelier? Flying to the island itself and conducting an expedition—for research, of course. Did the chocolate fountain at the fete make you shit yourself with nostalgia for the Trevi? Then why not jet off to Rome at sunrise? There were few plans you couldn’t change, planes you couldn’t charter, for the right opportunity or impulsive excursion. Poppy Hastings was known for three things: her infectious spontaneity, the row of gold-plated teeth she supposedly had lodged in the back of her mouth, and helping her dear friends invest in high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

The kinds that didn’t get listed in the yellow pages, if you know what I mean.

But none of her investments ever came to fruition. Not that many people cared, or even realized the money was missing until they sat down to talk to me. When you’re that well off, who notices a measly million here or there?

And that’s precisely what Poppy was counting on.

After almost two years (639 days, but who’s counting?) of pre-reporting, dead ends, no-show interviews, creepy internet meet-ups with foot fetishists, and failed attempts to piece the puzzle together, plus one blackout bus ride to Saratoga Springs, all the while quietly doing my actual job with my head held down, I finally stepped back.

And I saw the full picture, the real Poppy Hastings in all her grandeur and glory.

The woman was just another high-end scam artist.

Born in Hastings, England, one of the poorest areas in all of Britain, Poppy Watts had been orphaned at the age of five. She’d stayed at an institution for another five years, then been adopted at the age of ten. After her adoption, she’d disappeared for another decade, then reemerged in London’s high society at the ripe old age of twenty, draped in designer threads, sporting tastefully enhanced tits, and clutching the fattest Rolodex in town. I couldn’t figure out where she’d gone or how she’d come into so much money, but she’d spent the next seven years quietly subsidizing her lifestyle by creating fleeting friendships and convincing her fair-weather companions to invest in nonexistent business ventures, then pocketing the cash.

A girl boss if I ever saw one.

But how did Poppy Hastings get away with running what was essentially a one-woman MLM?

Here’s the brilliant part: by hiding in plain sight.

Most grifters identify their mark, make their play, then move on before anyone is the wiser. Not Poppy. She never ran from her victims; she bought them another round. How could a woman so charming, so charitable, so motherfucking rich, have no real money of her own? Poppy knew no one would wonder long enough to actually out her. She was using their own egocentrism against them, banking on the fact that they were mostly thinking about themselves.

And they always, always were.

At this point, I knew what I had was big, and I was ready to bring it to my editor, Cat. Here’s what you need to know about Cat: when she meets you, she will immediately assume that you’re an idiot. It’s on you to convince her otherwise. I had yet to break through Cat’s impenetrable veneer but was determined to gain her respect.

As I ran through my outline, my findings, I watched her lips twitch upward slightly into a smile, and the vein in her forehead popped. She was pissed, sure. But she was also impressed. She instructed me never to do anything so stupid without her permission ever again and also to start writing as soon as humanly possible.

Feeling proud for the first time since joining the Shred, I happily obliged.

I typed furiously on my NYD loaner laptop. The words couldn’t escape my fingers fast enough. Instead of fantasizing about having my way with feature writing, I was finally fucking it. I was about to make my first real wave as a journalist.

And then Brad Zarbos was found murdered in his goose-feather bed.

Chapter Three

Here’s the first rule of conspiracy: Cable news can give you the headlines, but the truth is hidden somewhere in between the lines.

Twitter. Reddit. Tumblr. Twitch. The deep, dark web.

The news may belong to the people who report it, but theorists?

They live in the shadows.

Still, as a journalist, cable is nonnegotiable. When I was first starting out, I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for days on end, savoring each bite of crust as if it were fucking caviar. But I did find the money (by going into debt) for network television, and I’ll tell you why. As a reporter, I like to have the news on in the background 24-7. And then there are live events like sports games, awards shows, even the Olympics. The shit you have to stop, drop, and cover. But food with nutritional value? Now, that can be overlooked.

Settling onto the love seat—the one still stained with Roommate’s bodily fluids—I crack open a lukewarm Heineken using a pair of Tweezerman scissors, then pick up the remote and cautiously turn on the TV.

It only takes a minute of channel surfing to find it: live footage of news anchors camped outside of Albion Correctional Facility, microphones at the ready, waiting for Poppy to be released. I suck in my cheeks and take a strained sip from my beer, choking on the carbonation. One of the broadcasters announces that Poppy is being let out early for good behavior—not, as I’ve been quietly speculating, because she’s been pardoned by the president (a rumor that has been circulating for quite some time).

Good behavior.

What a joke.

She probably did what she does best: charmed the guards with lingering flirtation and the forbidden promise of bottomless pools of cold hard cash. Before they knew it, the staff was a bunch of turncoats.

I bet she manipulated her way out of Albion just like she manipulated Brad Zarbos.

Roommate throws the door open and rushes in, spewing curses I can’t decipher. She’s carrying a bottle of cheap vodka under one arm and what appears to be a stuffed caterpillar under the other. I assume the latter is for her. She heads straight for the cabinets and rummages through what’s left of our clean glasses, which isn’t much, finally settling on a brown WORLD’S BEST DAD mug. She fills the mug with enough distilled rubbing alcohol to kill a small cat and hands it to me. Then she plops down on the floor cradling the bottle, taking