Nikki Haskell is one of New York City’s rising TikTok stars — at age 81.
“I’m skewing young,” the octogenarian told The Post of her newfound platform as a “Grandfluencer” on TikTok, where she calls herself the OG influencer and dishes about knowing your worth, learning how to delegate and that time she left a sex party because the participants weren’t pretty enough.
“I’m young at heart,” Haskell tells her 130,000 followers.
Haskell has had many lives. She had a career on Wall Street in the late 1960s, then she hosted a glamorous cable access program “The Nikki Haskell Show, where she interviewed the likes of Liza Minelli and Andy Warhol. There was also a failed bid at diet guru – in 2014, she was fined $60,000 for mislabeling her StarCaps diet pills. Now, she’s adding social media maven to the list.
Despite being criticized for her support of president Donald Trump, she has a team of twenty-somethings working to produce slick videos about longevity advice and the series “Things I know in my 80s I wish I knew in my 20s” on the social media platform where she has amassed millions of views.
“Nostalgia is making a gigantic return,” Haskell said.
She started TikToking in 2021 to relive her glory days and keep her legacy alive with a new generation in her signature hot pink lipstick and heavy smoky eye. One early post was a fitness video with another senior working out with Haskell’s resistance band invention the StarCruncher to the tune of Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.”
Another showed her sailing away on a yacht on her way to Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the South of France, and sitting poolside with her friend Pamela Anderson at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She racked up 10,000 followers on her own. But when she hit a lull, she recruited a team to help keep her content hip.
“We brainstorm what we’re going to talk about. I realize the people out there need a positive influence and I try to do it in a very fun, positive way. I like to tell them some of my stories,” Haskell said.
That includes sharing memories of her doppelganger and friend Joan Rivers, reminiscing with supermodel bestie Beverly Johnson about the time their friend passed out and they flirted with the paramedics and poking fun at Nick Cannon for expecting his 12th child. For those who take issue with her content, she’s quick to clap back. When a commenter criticized her thin eyebrows, she snapped “I’ll get eyebrows when you get a life.”
She also doles out advice. In one post, she says “You’ll never meet anyone dancing in a closet,” encouraging her fans to get off their phones and meet people IRL (in real life).
She goes on to recall a life-changing night in her 30s in the late 1970s when she ran into Prince Egon Von Furstenberg, the late banker, fashion designer and first husband of Diane Von Furstenberg. She’d almost stayed in. Instead, the duo ended up at Studio 54, and that night and he asked Haskell to co-host a talk show with him.
“In that split second, my whole life changed. It was kismet,” Haskell said. Von Furstenberg eventually pulled out of the show, leaving her with the solo slot. There were many memorable moments over the years.
She weaseled her way to the front of the press pit at the Deauville Film Festival in France to ask Gene Kelly if he still had the umbrella from “Singin’ in the Rain.” She told Rick James at Studio 54 he was the “hottest, sexiest, most romantic man in town.” And she had her cameraman hide to get an interview with Liza Minnelli.
“Her [Minnelli’s] husband at the time, Mark Gerohe said ‘you’re not allowed to film Liza. If I see your camera man I’m going to break the camera.’ So I told my cameraman to hide the camera – she was always very supportive of me,” she said.
Another favorite moment was an interview with Andy Warhol and the unforgettable business advice he gave her.
“One of the things Andy Warhol told me was to put ‘limited edition’ on everything – so everything I ever did I’ve put ‘limited edition on.’ He was expressing how you market something,” Haskell said.
While Haskell admits many of her interviews happened because she was in the right place at the right time, she’s teaching her TikTok fans to make their own luck.
“All these hacks on the internet will tell you how to be successful — they’re bogus,” she says in her latest TikTok.
“Most of the time it’s luck … you have to be prepared. Luck meets opportunity, but the best thing is, most times, you make your own luck. Don’t be afraid to get out there.”
