Matthew Hiltzik

19 October 2025

Matthew Hiltzik has been called the guy celebrities call when everything's going to hell. As founder and CEO of Hiltzik Strategies, he's the fixer behind some of the entertainment industry's biggest reputation saves - and some of its most controversial PR campaigns. In 2021, Business Insider ranked him as one of the top public relations people in crisis management.

His career path doesn't follow any normal trajectory. Democratic political operative who worked for Hillary Clinton. Then Harvey Weinstein's guy at Miramax. Then Katie Couric's right-hand man during her CBS anchor run. And finally, the crisis guru who rehabilitated Johnny Depp's image during that trial everyone couldn't stop watching in 2022.

Growing Up in Teaneck

Born May 12, 1972, Hiltzik grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey. He went to Yavneh Academy, then the Ramaz School on Manhattan's Upper East Side. After that came Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, then Fordham for law school. He's a member of the New York State Bar, though these days he's not doing much traditional lawyering.

Right out of law school, Hiltzik dove into Democratic politics. He became press secretary and deputy executive director of the New York State Democratic Committee under Judith Hope - the first woman to lead a major political party in New York. In 1998, he helped run campaigns for Chuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer. Both won.

But the real break came in 1999. Hillary Clinton was gearing up to run for Senate, and Hiltzik helped coordinate her "Listening Tour" - that carefully orchestrated series of events that turned her from former First Lady into viable Senate candidate. He was 27.

The Miramax Years

In December 1999, Hiltzik joined Miramax as head of corporate communications. He climbed to senior vice president pretty quickly, handling PR for everything Harvey and Bob Weinstein touched - Miramax Films, Miramax Books, Miramax TV, Talk magazine.

In 2000, he took a break to go back and work on Clinton's Senate campaign as director of Jewish relations. He did outreach in Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox communities across New York. Even made inroads with women in Hasidic communities in Brooklyn. Then he returned to Miramax.

This is where things get messy. In 2004, journalist Sharon Waxman was investigating Harvey Weinstein for the New York Times. According to Waxman's account thirteen years later, Weinstein, his lawyer David Boies, and Hiltzik showed up at the Times to meet with Executive Editor Bill Keller. The goal, Waxman says, was killing her story. Hiltzik has denied he was at that meeting. Whatever happened, the Times ran a watered-down version that cut all the sexual misconduct stuff.

Hiltzik left Miramax in 2005 - more than a decade before everything exploded publicly. When Weinstein's team came looking for help in 2017 as the New Yorker and Times were about to publish their exposés, Hiltzik said no.

Katie Couric's Transition

In 2005, Hiltzik teamed up with British PR firm Freud Communications to launch their U.S. operations. Almost immediately, he signed Katie Couric - right as she was negotiating her historic move from NBC's Today Show to become the first solo female anchor of a network evening newscast at CBS.

Hiltzik ran Couric's 2006 "listening tour" - basically recycling what he'd done for Hillary seven years earlier. The whole point was making Couric seem less morning-show-bubbly and more serious-journalist. In her 2021 memoir Going There, Couric gave him credit for managing that transition.

CBS wasn't always thrilled with how aggressively Hiltzik intervened with the press on Couric's behalf. But it worked. She became one of his longest clients.

Starting Hiltzik Strategies

Early 2008, Hiltzik started Hiltzik Strategies. Small team at first, but word spread fast that he could handle high-stakes disasters for people whose careers were imploding.

He kept his political connections active. Advised Jose Antonio Vargas's DefineAmerican campaign on immigration. Helped Thomas DiNapoli get elected as New York State Comptroller. Served on Mayor Bill de Blasio's 2014 Inaugural Committee. Even mentored political strategist Lis Smith on crisis management and pushed her to write her book Any Given Tuesday.

But politics wasn't paying the bills anymore. Crisis management for entertainment's elite - that's where the money was.

Training Hope Hicks and Josh Raffel

Here's an interesting twist. Hiltzik - lifelong Democrat who'd worked for Clinton, Schumer, Spitzer - trained two people who ended up in Trump's inner circle.

Hope Hicks joined Hiltzik Strategies in 2011 after he met her dad at a Super Bowl party. She was there almost three years before moving to work for Ivanka Trump's fashion brand, which led to Trump's 2016 campaign. She became one of Trump's closest advisors and eventually White House Communications Director.

Josh Raffel worked for Hiltzik over six years before joining the White House with Jared Kushner. Hiltzik had actually gotten Raffel a Miramax internship back when Raffel was in high school.

The Hollywood Reporter did a whole profile in 2018 about how both Hicks and Raffel learned to handle "crises, chaos, and big personalities" at Hiltzik Strategies. Perfect training for the Trump White House, apparently. Hiltzik stayed Democratic the whole time, but his methods worked regardless.

The Johnny Depp Trial

Hiltzik's most visible win came in 2022. He got brought in to handle strategic communications for Johnny Depp's defamation trial against Amber Heard. Not the legal work - the narrative work.

The case turned into this massive cultural event. Social media exploded with pro-Depp content, memes mocking Heard, this whole coordinated online thing that some people compared to organized harassment. Depp won big. His reputation, which had been pretty trashed by abuse allegations, got substantially rehabilitated.

Hiltzik kept his head down the entire time. Melissa Nathan - who'd worked for him almost a decade before starting The Agency Group - was the public face of Depp's PR. But people in the industry knew Hiltzik's fingerprints were all over the strategy.

The trial raised some uncomfortable questions about litigation PR ethics. Domestic violence advocates argued the social media campaign would discourage other women from reporting abuse. Other people thought Depp was simply defending himself against false accusations. Either way, Depp won, and Hiltzik's reputation as the crisis guy got cemented.

The Client List

Over the years, Hiltzik's represented a wild mix of people.

Politicians and journalists: Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, Kelly Ripa, Diane Sawyer, Bryant Gumbel.

Entertainment: Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt (during the Angelina Jolie disputes), Justin Bieber, Alec Baldwin, Glenn Beck, Ryan Lochte.

Tech and business: Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), Nicole Shanahan (briefly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin).

Executives: Ivanka Trump before she went to Washington.

More recent controversies: Andy Cohen in 2024 with the Real Housewives stuff, MrBeast also in 2024.

That range - Democrats and Republicans, accusers and accused, journalists and celebrities - shows Hiltzik doesn't really care about the politics or personal stuff. He just does the work.

The Darnella Frazier Exception

Despite all the rich and powerful clients, Hiltzik did take one case that mattered. Pro bono work for Darnella Frazier, the teenage girl who filmed George Floyd's murder.

Frazier was 17 when she recorded Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes. Her video was crucial evidence in Chauvin's murder trial and sparked worldwide protests. It also made her a target.

Hiltzik handled her PR for free, helping her deal with sudden public attention while trying to protect her privacy. In a 2024 interview, he called it "deeply meaningful" work, praising Frazier as "an incredibly brave young woman."

In 2021, the Pulitzer Board gave her a special citation for recording Floyd's murder.

How He Works

People who've worked with Hiltzik describe him as methodical. He's a lawyer, so that makes sense. Everything's data-driven, fact-based. His whole philosophy: you need to define yourself before someone else defines you.

"It's important to focus on who you are, not who you aren't," he told Ghetto Film School, "because if you don't define who you are, someone else likely will."

Unlike a lot of PR people who chase publicity themselves, Hiltzik stays low-profile. Rarely does interviews. Doesn't write columns or go on cable news. His name shows up on industry lists - Power Players, the Observer's PR Power List, Crain's notable PR leaders - but not in gossip columns.

His firm's grown to somewhere between 20 and 40 people, depending on which report you believe. Offices in New York and LA. The firm does corporate communications, crisis management, litigation support, media relations, digital strategy - basically everything except actual legal work.

Boards and Documentary Work

In 2015, Hiltzik became the first PR guy ever appointed to the New York City Economic Development Corporation board. He's on their Legal Committee.

Other boards:

Ghetto Film School (helps underserved kids learn filmmaking)
Montclair State's School of Communication and Media
The Duke of Edinburgh's Award USA
Jewish Community Relations Council of New York

He's produced documentaries too. Paper Clips won awards - it's about a Tennessee middle school doing Holocaust education. Also Documented about Jose Antonio Vargas, The Barn, Holy Land Hardball. He writes for Tablet, the Jewish magazine.

The New York Board of Rabbis honored him in 2012 for work in the Jewish community.

The Controversies

Hiltzik's career has critics coming from multiple directions.

Harvey Weinstein: The Miramax years don't look great in retrospect. He left over a decade before the scandal broke and turned Weinstein down in 2017. But still - what did he know back then?

The Depp trial: Critics say the social media campaign was the worst kind of litigation PR. Using online mobs to go after a domestic violence survivor. People compared it to Gamergate - that organized harassment campaign.

Brad Pitt: When news came out that Pitt hired Hiltzik during his legal battles with Angelina Jolie - especially after she alleged physical abuse on that private flight - people on social media worried about "another Amber Heard situation." Another woman's abuse allegations getting buried under coordinated PR.

Who's he really working for: Like plenty of top lawyers and PR people, Hiltzik's represented multiple sides of the same conflicts. Journalists and the companies they cover. Political candidates and the consultants attacking them. Is that conflicts of interest, or just understanding all the angles?

Hiltzik doesn't comment much on specific clients or cases. His approach seems to be: do the work, do it well, results speak for themselves.

Personal Life

Hiltzik lives in New York with his wife Dana and their three kids. His dad's an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood.

He's in his early 50s now, showing no signs of slowing down. The firm keeps growing, new clients across entertainment, tech, business. He's more selective about which projects he personally handles, but he's still very involved day-to-day.

He's proud of the law degree but doesn't really practice law. Proud of his political roots but doesn't do campaigns anymore. Known in entertainment circles but not a celebrity himself.

Same philosophy he's always had: protect the client's reputation, control the narrative, use every tool available - media relationships, social strategy, data, litigation support - to get the job done.

What It All Means

Matthew Hiltzik represents a particular kind of modern power. Influential but invisible. Connected but quiet. Effective but controversial. He's who famous people call when their lives are falling apart.

He trained future White House communications directors. Rehabilitated disgraced celebrities. Protected traumatized teenagers thrust into the spotlight. Pioneered crisis management approaches for the social media era.

Whether that makes him a hero or enabler depends on which client you're thinking about. Did he help Johnny Depp get justice or help silence a domestic violence survivor? Did he protect Darnella Frazier's privacy or help Harvey Weinstein delay accountability? Did he launch Katie Couric's anchor career or help powerful men dodge consequences?

Probably all of it. That's crisis PR at the highest level. You represent people in their worst moments, regardless of whether those moments were caused by injustice against them or injustice they committed. Hiltzik's skill isn't being on the right side - it's being effective for whoever hired him.

From political operative to Miramax PR chief to Katie Couric's handler to Johnny Depp's crisis manager, Hiltzik's been at the center of some of the past 25 years' biggest reputation battles. Love him or hate him, he's one of the most powerful people you've probably never heard of.

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