In a world full of Hiltons and Ecclestones, Amanda Hearst seems like your average girl-next-door. Although, as the great-granddaughter of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, the heiress is far from it. The 28-year-old model and associate market editor at Marie Claire guards her good-girl socialite image carefully, telling the New York Times, 'I try to stay in line and not be a jerk. 'I’ve always been conscious that if I really screw up people might notice.'
With America watching, it's easy to fall into the trappings of other airhead heiresses and sassy socialites who find it hard to stay out of trouble. 'You see how far it can go in the news when someone misbehaves.'
She’s also single, but says: 'I’m definitely an independent person, and I don’t need boyfriends all the time.'
Hearst refuses to go on reality television, and is cautious around the news media, careful not to push her name and looks in a cultural age where society girls with a television deal and brand to promote are common fare.
Hearst has modelled for Tommy Hilfiger and Lilly Pulitzer, and is featured in a new Assouline book, American Beauty, which she proudly promoted on her blog where she also models ethically sound fashion finds.
However she is careful not to run around the Hearst halls, or Manhattan streets, playing a princess.
'I still get stopped by security,' she said. 'Most people don’t know who I am.'
Awareness of the danger and scrutiny of bad press likely comes from Aunt Patty Hearst who made headlines for the wrong reasons when she was kidnapped from her apartment in 1974 by a left-wing guerrilla group.
After her father made a $6million donation to the group's charity of choice, Hearst announced on an audiotape that her father could have done better, and explained that she had joined the group assuming the name Tania.
The then 20-year-old was subsequently convicted and jailed.
The 28-year-old (left) teams up with Georgina Bloomberg (middle) regularly for human rights causes
Hearst also learned her own lesson in press management nearly a decade ago, when an article in Harper’s Bazaar, where she was interning, tallied up her personal expenses and published the figure in a story about young socialites.
Ironically, Harper's Bazaar is owned by Hearst, and printed her annual spending at $136,000, an article Hearst has spent the last 10 years living down.
Careful not to have herself put in that position again, she is intent on focusing on her socialite duties on charities.
Most recently, she participated in the puppy mill raid in North Carolina with Georgina Bloomberg for the Humane Society of the United States and Friends of Finn, an organisation she started last year and named after her dog.
Of her reason for attending such events in person, rather than applying the throw-money-at-it mentality popular among her elite peers, she says: 'If I’m going to talk about an issue, I better know what it’s about viscerally. It’s hard to watch, but it’s important.'
