Nene King: magazine war with Boling will 'never' end

THE magazine war winning over TV audiences is not over, with former editor Nene King raging she will never speak to rival Dulcie Boling again.

Nene: Our mag war will never end

IF you think the magazine war between former media rivals Nene King and her one-time boss Dulcie Boling is just the stuff of TV dramas, think again - with their real feud reigniting in the wake of the ABC telemovie which has captured their famously bitter publishing battle.

While 846,000 viewers watched Paper Giants: Magazine Wars last night - the old foes were back brawling in the pages of the magazines they once ruled.

Giving her only interview on the TV series to this week's New Idea, King has taken a new swipe at Boling, claiming she "will never speak to (her) again" after she said Boling "told a journalist I'm brain damaged."

Now working as an agony aunt for the magazine she once sought to bring down, King railed: "Look at me! Do I look brain damaged to you? And if I was brain damaged, why did she have me working with her for so long?"

In turn, King accused Boling of rewriting history in the latest chapter of their 25-year-long feud.

Dulcie Boling played by Rachel Griffiths and Nene King played by Mandy McElhinney in Paper Giants Magazine Wars. Picture: ABC

Boling recently gave her side of the story to the Australian Women's Weekly, in which the now Seven Media board member claimed she had "manipulated" King into resigning when she had been Boling's deputy, using King's famous temper against her.

Telling AWW, Boling said: "she burst in screaming and yelling and I just sat behind my desk giving her this hard, cold, icy stare. She went on and on, saying, `you're impossible, I can't work with you anymore.' I said, `thank you, Nene."

Boling added: "I manipulated her into threatening to resign. I knew she would do it. I am not proud of myself for doing that, but I don't regret it. The truth is, it gave her the out. She could say, `I told that bitch where to go and how to get there.' I think that after she had been with me for six years, Nene deserved that.'

Now living in Ballarat and awaiting the trial in November of a close friend accused of stealing $200,000 from her bank account, King told New Idea she tried to avoid watching the two-part ABC series, but couldn't afford to leave the country.

"I suppose I should be flattered I did make a success of my career. I know I was obsessive and loud and foul-mouthed and all of the above. I was a show pony.

"But I didn't just scream and stomp around. In the beginning I was charming and enthusiastic and desperate to be a winner, and then I got too pleased with myself.

"I thought the sun shone out of my you-know-where and I became a different person. I was high maintenance! I was, although I hope there was another side to me. But the TV producers didn't want nice Nene, did they? They decided: `let's not show those bits, because people will be bored.' They wanted drama."

Former Magazine Editor Dulcie Boling, has received the Life Time Achievement award from the Melbourne Press Club.

The real-to-reel drama had local media identities talking on Twitter last night, with former ACP editors, including the Today show's Lisa Wilkinson and Mamamia founder Mia Freedman comparing notes on their time working with and alongside King and Boling.

Most notably, the scenes featuring a special hotline to owner Kerry Packer triggered many memories of the red handset they all called "the bat phone."

Freedman tweeted: "The batphone! Every ACP editor had one on her desk. In case KP wanted to call. Whenever it rang, you vomited in your mouth. #papergiants."

Wilkinson revealed: "the circulation numbers envelope always came on a Friday. Straight away you knew what sort of weekend you had ahead."

Asked if, like King, she had ever used Packer's private toilet, Wilkinson noted: "yes at drinks 2 celeb Croc Dundee launch which KP backed."

King picked fault with some detail in Paper Giants, refuting she ever screamed at Packer.

"You didn't yell at Kerry Packer! And I certainly didn't sit on his knee when he put me in charge of The Australian Women's Weekly' I gave him a peck on the cheek - believe me, there were far more beautiful women than me lining up to sit on Kerry Packer's knee!"

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