Who wrote fifty shades of grey
Having sold more than 100million of her steamy books, which tell of the sexual awakening of a virginal university student at the hands of a handsome, brooding billionaire, she is believed to have earned around £50million in the past year alone - a fortune predicted to grow once again with the release of the Fifty Shades Of Grey film next Saturday. ‘It’s completely and utterly overwhelming and it just hasn’t sunk in.’īut what began as an exercise in escapism on her long, dreary Underground commute into London five years ago has transformed Leonard into one of the richest and most influential authors in the world. Then, Leonard seemed like a rabbit caught in the headlights, a woman who couldn’t believe her luck after penning erotic tales initially intended for her own private titillation.
This image of Leonard, the control freak, is a far cry from the overawed, rather ordinary mother-of-two I met in April 2012, when she gave her first ever interview to the Daily Mail, at her London agent’s Soho office. Leonard even emailed costume designer Mark Bridges to let him know which outfits her army of fans would be expecting to see in the film, and sent sketches of floorplans to set designers, outlining exactly how her wealthy hero Christian Grey’s penthouse apartment in Seattle would have looked.
Only one studio acceded to all Leonard’s demands and the deal with Universal in 2012, for a reported $5million, included approval over choice of director, script and cast. Leonard even emailed costume designer Mark Bridges to let him know which outfits her army of fans would be expecting to see in the film, and sent sketches of floorplans to set designers, outlining exactly how her wealthy hero Christian Grey’s penthouse apartment in Seattle would have looked