Who

Rubenstein is the batty ex-editor-in-chief of Seventeen. She's also an aspiring name brand and minor MySpace celebrity.

Backstory

Atoosa Behnegar was born in Tehran, the daughter of a colonel in the Iranian air force, and spent her childhood in Queens and Long Island before attending Barnard. As a college student, she interned at Sassy; in 1993 she landed her first paying job in the biz as an assistant to Helen Gurley Brown at Cosmo. Atoosa quickly ascended the editorial ladder: At just 26, she managed to convince Hearst honcho Cathie Black to start a new title, CosmoGIRL!, and signed on as founding editor. Following Hearst's 2003 acquisition of Seventeen from Primedia, Atoosa took over the editorial reins of the teen glossy and boosted circulation (and buzz) during her three-year stint. After tasting fame with her MTV reality show Miss Seventeen—and amid rumors of bizarre on-the-job happenings—in 2006 she quit (or was fired, depending on whom you talk to) and was replaced by Ann Shoket. Atoosa immediately announced her plans to launch a web venture geared toward teen girls.

Of note

In early 2007, Rubenstein announced the launch of Atoosa.com and Big Momma Productions. It still isn't entirely clear what she hopes to do with the company—she's said that she'll create "a place where we can be our fierce, unique and powerful selves—and have each other's backs," whatever that means. Her plans for world media domination hit a slight bump in the road in early 2007: Although she'd originally planned to launch "Psychic Kitty," a series of videos on MySpace of her cat Thurston offering motivational advice, she had to axe the feature after Thurston was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Instead she ran a series of YouTube videos called "Alpha Kitty," starring a Warhol-ish animated version of herself.

In 2007, the nutty, frizzy-haired editor was said to be in the process of raising money for her venture, although the stories that emerged from her meetings didn't sound terribly encouraging: Rubenstein reportedly presented her ideas to potential investors on construction paper covered in colored pencil markings. Of course, that's to be expected from the 'Toos: When she marked up editorial copy at Seventeen, she used a hot pink pen instead of the standard red.

Personal

The Muslim-born Rubenstein married Jewish commodities trader Ari Rubenstein in August 1998. (They split the difference and married in Unitarian-Universalist ceremony.) They had their first child, a daughter named Angelika McQueen, in 2008. The family lives in a 3,007-square-foot apartment in the Flatiron district, which they purchased for $3.05 million in 2006. They also have a home in East Hampton which they bought for $690,000 in 2003. The spread was featured on an episode of Miss Seventeen.

No joke

Rubenstein is a reformed "cutter." She says she used to self-mutilate as a teenager because of issues she had with her overbearing mom.