Inside Brianna Capozzi’s Photobook of Famous Flesh

Brianna Capozzi’s photography perfectly straddles the line between deeply sexy and deeply strange. An aesthetic passion that finds itself on full display in her new book Womanizer where the artist documents everyone from major superstars, like Jennifer Lopez and Sabrina Carpenter, to her mom and best friends in various states of undress. Images that are at once titillating and confounding, inviting the viewer to linger for a few moments longer. To celebrate the release of her latest monograph, Interview‘s Editor-in-Chief Mel Ottenberg invited Capozzi over to his apartment to chat about the beautiful work they’ve made together over the last decade, the world’s hottest pop stars, and never wasting a good ball of mozzarelle.

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SATURDAY, 5:42 PM, MAY 2, 2026 NEW YORK CITY

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MEL OTTENBERG: Okay. Tell me about your book.

BRIANNA CAPOZZI: Well, it’s filled with just the most fabulous people and—

OTTENBERG: Your mom is so hot.

CAPOZZI: I know. She’s in there a lot. Everyone stops at this picture not knowing it’s my mom and goes, “She’s amazing.”

OTTENBERG: Yeah, she really is.

CAPOZZI: How is she so—

OTTENBERG: She’s from New Jersey, right?

CAPOZZI: Yeah.

OTTENBERG: She’s Italian?

CAPOZZI: Yeah. She’s the star. Her name’s Cachatore, her maiden name. Marie Antoinette Cachatore.

OTTENBERG: Wow.

CAPOZZI: Now, Marie Antoinette Capozzi.

OTTENBERG: Okay. So you and Haley Wollens have done lots of pictures together. I’m trying to remember. Oh, we met in 2013?

CAPOZZI: We did.

OTTENBERG: Yes. I met you in 2013. That’s right, I met you through Jen Brill. And then you started shooting with Haley and you did this shoot with Chloë [Sevigny]…And is this the first time that Haley styled Chloë?

CAPOZZI: I think she had met her one other time for a job, and that was the first creative thing we had done together. We made a mood board of all these different things and we were like, “Oh my god, is she going to be down?” You get attached to the thing, you’re like, “She has to be down to do it. What if she doesn’t want to do it?!”

OTTENBERG: Is she down to be naked with a lobster over her pussy? What is this reference from?

CAPOZZI: It’s a Dalí reference.

OTTENBERG: Oh, great. It looks great. She was down.

CAPOZZI: Yeah, she was totally down. My dad had that lobster for dinner.

OTTENBERG: Do you love pop stars?

CAPOZZI: I love pop stars.

OTTENBERG: This is a great spread of pop stars.

CAPOZZI: Selena [Gomez], and then we got the cover outtake.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. The cover outtake is very hot.

CAPOZZI: Yeah, she looks so good.

OTTENBERG: Oh, this is such a great picture. This is such a beautiful moment. It’s Miley with her boobs out. It’s really great.

CAPOZZI: This is the best. We don’t have to censor it in the book. We love that. Nick des Jardins‘s hands with the goo from the shoe shot.

OTTENBERG: For the record, it’s uncensored in the inside of the magazine too. I love it so much.

CAPOZZI: I love the bubble gum goo.

OTTENBERG: I feel like I need a print of this photograph.

CAPOZZI: Oh, you can get one.

OTTENBERG: Right? I feel like I need it.

CAPOZZI: Yeah. It’d be so good.

OTTENBERG: This was a random moment. This was a last shot.

CAPOZZI: This was the last photo for the entire day. We maybe spent 30 seconds making it.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. They were like, “You have to leave.”

CAPOZZI: They were like, “You have to leave,” and she was running off with her Gucci, fluffy little jacket on. We had just done the bubble gum on the floor. We did this elaborate setup. We spread this goo on the floor to do this bubble gum shot. And then I knew I had this little thing that I wanted to shoot because we had done all the shots the day before together in the house.

OTTENBERG: Yes, yes. We had prepped this shoot very, very, very specifically.

CAPOZZI: Yes. Where we kind of remade everything the day before.

OTTENBERG: We dressed everything on you.

CAPOZZI: Yes. And I had this magnifying glass, and I hate to not use something. If I have an idea, I’m like I have to use it. I didn’t want to go home.

OTTENBERG: But we weren’t necessarily talking about magnifying boobs. It was the lips. You think it was this?

CAPOZZI: I could check my PDF. You know I have my PDF.

OTTENBERG: I know you have your PDF. Okay, go on.

CAPOZZI: And then at the last minute, she was running off and I was like, “Please, please, can we do this one last thing quickly?” And then we didn’t really know how we were going to do it. How are we going to get this thing in the picture? And so I was just like, “Nick, hold it with your gloves.” And so Nick held it and we got this photo and she was so joyous. Just the smile, everything, was so perfect.

OTTENBERG: I know.

CAPOZZI: And I just love how his hands are just a sliver, slightly sticking out.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. And this is my first cover as Editor-in-Chief of Interview.

CAPOZZI: Oh, we love that. And her boobs look perfect.

OTTENBERG: That’s such a good picture. Okay. I’m just going to find ones where I’m like, duh, we should talk about these because that’s a good way of doing these things. Okay. So, Chloë’s a nun.

CAPOZZI: Yes. Chloë is a nun and this is shot near my mom’s house in this house that was run down from [Hurricane] Sandy. It was this epic house that I was obsessed with as a kid and it was next to me. It was this pink stucco house and the two women who lived there were these lesbians and one of them worked on Broadway and had the most insane stuff around her house. I always wanted to go in. When Sandy happened, it became abandoned and all of the furniture got pushed up to one side. And so I finally could go in because It’s—

OTTENBERG: Empty.

CAPOZZI: It was totally empty  So, we live on the Hudson River. This house is literally a corner surrounded by Hudson River. So it overflowed, whatever, and I went in and it was amazing. We did this shot in there and this was, like, the marble floor. They had lions on the walls and big giant murals, insane staircases with elaborate carvings. It was so good. But Haley got this outfit, it’s Chanel, and we came up with the idea to put her in a…what’s it called? A habit?

OTTENBERG: Yeah, a nun’s habit.

CAPOZZI:Yeah.

OTTENBERG: Wow, that’s so good.

CAPOZZI: And the chastity belt, the homemade chastity belt with hardware store chaining.

OTTENBERG: I absolutely love the styling and the photograph. Okay, what was baby 2014 Julia Fox like?

CAPOZZI: Okay. Also one of me and Haley’s first shoots. It might’ve even been before the other one that I showed you. We shot for Vice and we did this story called “Earth Girls Are Easy” and it was all about the walk of shame. So we shot a really big cast of people, even Haley ended up in one of the outfits disguised. But we shot at my…oh my god. We shot at my ex- boyfriend’s, who’s like an icon himself. His name’s Todd and he was in it fake hooking up with all the girls. We needed another guy and we went over to his neighbor, Vinny, who literally was, like, a married man and he comes over in his underwear to do the shoot. It was totally madness, but this is in his basement. Baby Julia. The girls would just literally show up at our door and we’d be like, “Okay, come on, get ready.” They were coming in our house like it was a walk of shame.

OTTENBERG: Wow. I definitely did not know her then. I’m looking to see who else we need to talk about. Obviously, love Jessica.

CAPOZZI: Jessica Miller and the Jeremy Scott.

OTTENBERG: Wow, Gwyneth Paltrow.

CAPOZZI: Laverne Cox.

OTTENBERG: Oh, yeah. These Miley pictures were great. I love this. Miley’s so fun to shoot.

CAPOZZI: So fun. We should do it again. She’s the best. We shot this on Valentine’s Day and we had dinner with her.

OTTENBERG: Wow

CAPOZZI: And it was just the most fabulous Valentine’s Day we could ever have imagined.

OTTENBERG: Incredible.

CAPOZZI: We were in Palm Heights drinking piña coladas while she took her breaks. It was really fun.

OTTENBERG: Oh, she looks so good.

CAPOZZI: We took a boat trip to a private little island to take that one.

OTTENBERG: Okay. We should stop talking about Miley, but come on. This is the best picture.

CAPOZZI: This interview is just, like, us talking about Miley.

OTTENBERG: I know.

CAPOZZI: Being like, “We want to be her friend.”

OTTENBERG: I just love this photograph so much. It’s so good.

CAPOZZI: I know. That was the first one we did of the day. Remember?

OTTENBERG: Yeah, it was a perfect day.

CAPOZZI: She had her boobs in.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, it was just so great. Jesus, it’s so good.

OTTENBERG: We’re at another Interview page. Not that I don’t want to talk about everyone, but let’s talk about these people.

CAPOZZI: Right, this is an Interview page.

OTTENBERG: This is a deep Interview page. It’s Sabrina Carpenter and JLo.

CAPOZZI: Jenny. Okay. So, well, you remember these slippers? I got these at a salvage rummage sale and it was, like, this one stand, they had all these Halloween costumes. I can’t remember what else I bought, but I bought one other thing and I bought these. And when I went up to the counter, the woman goes, “You are getting the weirdest things. You can just have them.”

OTTENBERG: Oh wow, because they were so crazy.

CAPOZZI: They were just so beat up, and like—

OTTENBERG: But we needed them for Sabrina Carpenter

CAPOZZI: No, I brought them to Sabrina Carpenter and I remember saying to you, like, “Okay, we need to get these on her. They’re so perfect.” And then this is my whip that I wore years ago for my Halloween costume. I was an animatrix. I was like an anime dominatrix. I brought both of those items, and then we came up with this and they worked so well. We only shot the whip for like three frames and then we took it away. And I was like, “Why did we take it away?” It’s so good.

OTTENBERG: I don’t even remember it at all.

CAPOZZI: The whip? Because it was short-lived.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, it looks great.

CAPOZZI: She really looks great. I left it there and I had to, like, track the whip down.

OTTENBERG: Oh, shit. And then what about JLo? You shot her in a house?

CAPOZZI: I shot her in a house in LA. I don’t remember what area it was.

OTTENBERG: Do you remember anything she said?

CAPOZZI: Well, I remember it was so unbelievably hot out. Yeah, I remember lots of things she said. I’ll tell you all of them. First of all, drones were coming and like trying to—

OTTENBERG: Paparazzi drones?

CAPOZZI: Yes! Paparazzi drones, and we had to have the umbrella over her to hide her. And then, at one point, she had the light on her and she said, “I don’t know what this light is, but I look amazing.” Something to that extent, like, “I have the JLo glow.”

OTTENBERG: Yes!

CAPOZZI: And then, at the end of the shoot, I was obsessed with her personality. Obsessed. She was flirting the whole time. We were trying to get her to do one thing, but then she was flirting for us to do something else. I never saw someone try to get her way in such a sexy—

OTTENBERG: Oh, seductive.

CAPOZZI: Yeah, seductive way. To the point that I was like, “She’s so nice in these moments.”

OTTENBERG: I think at one point she did say to you, “Because I’m real.”

CAPOZZI: Oh, that’s what I’m about to tell you! So then, at the end of the shoot, I went, “I love your personality.” And she went, “Yeah, I’m real.”

OTTENBERG: Yesss.

CAPOZZI: And I was just like, “Oh my god.” That, and you know the story about Pam Anderson running away from us, right? In the red bathing suit?

OTTENBERG: No.

CAPOZZI:  Okay. So the Pam Anderson one, look, here she is. The red bathing suit, she puts it on. That was the key thing we had to shoot was this red bathing suit. And she comes down, it’s like five in the morning because she wants to shoot in the bright light, and we’re shooting, shooting, shooting. It’s happening so fast, I barely could get the pictures. And then she doesn’t want to be seen, I think. So she runs off, but I didn’t get the shot. I wasn’t even set up, and she’s running down the corridor at Palm Heights. Have you been?

OTTENBERG: I’ve never been.

CAPOZZI: Oh, ok. Well, she’s running down this long Palm Heights corridor and Haley’s literally chasing her and she’s in the red bathing suit. It might as well have been in slow motion on the beach with her perfect blonde hair. Like, she should have had the thing in her hand, the lifesaver. And we were like, “Is Pam Anderson actually running away from us the same way she ran in the show? In the red bathing suit?”

OTTENBERG: In-credible.

CAPOZZI: Like, what a once in a lifetime event. And so that plus the “I’m real,” I’m like I’m living in a dream.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, that’s incredible. Oh no, what happened to this lady’s leg?

CAPOZZI: This is my best friend and she fell down the stairs. She was staying in Brooklyn and I was helping take care of her. We were like, “Okay, we need to shoot this epic moment.” She’s super fabulous. She’s an artist.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, I know her. I know her, I didn’t recognize her.

CAPOZZI: I know because we really revamped her for this. Look at her perfect boobs in this picture. I was like, we have to shoot you.

OTTENBERG: Right. You’re, like, convalescent, but we have to fix you up and shoot you.

CAPOZZI: And she looks so good. The hair?

OTTENBERG: That’s incredible.

CAPOZZI: She’s giving Bianca Jagger.

OTTENBERG: Let’s also talk about the picture of your mom with the mozzarella on her knees. Or would you call that mozzarelle?

CAPOZZI: Mozzarelle. Mutzeel.

OTTENBERG: You would?

CAPOZZI: M-U-T-Z-E-E-L is how I would call it. Okay, this picture, let me find it.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, we got to find that picture of your mom with the mozzarelle on her knees.

CAPOZZI: So, I had to do a shoot where they said they want me to take a picture of my mom in something that says why I am the way I am, and I literally could only think about food. Food and, like, vanity. [Laughs] That’s what she’s all about. My mom does not go anywhere without her makeup. Her lip liner’s tattooed, her eyebrows are tattooed. So, I went to Whole Foods and I got this mutzeel. I brought it back to her and I was like, “Okay, let’s go.” So we went over to the neighbor’s house and I was like, “Let’s shoot in front of this garage.” And I didn’t really know what I was going to do, like I was a little stressed for this shoot because I was like-

OTTENBERG: What was the shoot for?

CAPOZZI: She’s wearing Celine again. Phoebe Celine.

OTTENBERG: Is it a fashion shoot?

CAPOZZI: No, it was just like a bunch of people had shot their moms. I don’t know who, but artists, photographers, made an image of their moms. So, I went over to my neighbor’s garage and I got half-and-half to make it look thicker. I poured all the mutzeel on her knees, and she’s just so down. She hates this photo because there’s way more fabulous ones where she’s looking more, like, snatch-ianna and glamazon, and she likes that. That’s more her vibe. But here, I just think she looks more naturally beautiful. Anyway, so then this was like falling and crumbling. The mutzeel was fresh—wet mutzeel—and it was, like, falling onto the floor and the cement. My mom was so upset. My dad pulled up and she’s like, “She’s wasting all this mutzeel! This mutzeel was $15!” So, she went back inside and washed it off and made a clam parmesan. Also, I had to go back out and, like, we stained the neighbors—

OTTENBERG: Oh, wow, it was all white?

CAPOZZI: It was all white and I had to literally go back out and scrub the cement because she didn’t know we shot there, our neighbor Flo. We shot in front of her house.

OTTENBERG: Wow.

CAPOZZI: For my sister’s book, I found out the name of this woman who owned this pool two doors downs from my mom. I asked a different neighbor to get me her number; I didn’t know these people. I texted her and I said, “I saw your pool. It’s so beautiful. I’m a photographer. Do you mind if I shoot there?” And she was like, “No, of course, but my son and my grandson will be home later.” So, I go and I shoot in the back of this house and I have these two sisters butt naked. One of them’s pregnant. [The son and grandson] show up on the balcony overlooking the pool while I’m shooting these two naked girls, and they’re like, “Excuse me?” My assistant’s holding the bounce card in front of the naked girls and I’m like, “Oh, hi, your mom said we can shoot here.” But obviously their mom didn’t say we could shoot two naked girls there. And he’s like, “She did?” And there was a four year old looking through the little balcony bars, it was really funny. So, I’m always causing havoc in that neighborhood. I’m always making my mom do things.