The day I met the first lady of hell: Bashar al-Assad's wife, Asma

When Joan Juliet Buck agreed to interview Asma al-Assad for Vogue in 2010, she had no idea it would destroy her livelihood and end her long career with the fashion bible. Here, in an article first published in 2012, she reveals the truth about her week with the Assads

Asma al-Assad, second left, listens to her husband Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2014. File picture: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

LATE IN THE afternoon of December 1, 2010, I got a call from a features editor at Vogue. She asked if I wanted to go to Syria to interview the first lady, Asma al-Assad.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I don’t want to meet the Assads, and they don’t want to meet a Jew.”