Home LifestyleCareer Meet Mary Pat Thibodeau: Celebrity Photo Director-Turned-CBD Connoisseur

Meet Mary Pat Thibodeau: Celebrity Photo Director-Turned-CBD Connoisseur

by Diana Cooper
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It’s no surprise the coronavirus pandemic has changed many lives — some experiencing positive outcomes and some facing severe negative impacts. Hoboken resident Mary Pat Thibodeau, for one, has experienced both. She opened up with Hoboken Girl about how one major setback in her life changed the path of her future. Read on to learn more about Mary and her career as a former celebrity photo director turned CBD representative. 

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About Mary Pat

Over the last 20-plus years, Mary Pat worked for various photo agencies like Getty Images and magazine publications, including New York Daily News, Star, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, Us Weekly, and Closer Weekly. She’s made her way up to the top, starting out as a photo researcher, then photo editor, then got promoted to a deputy photo editor, and finally, up until recently, worked as a deputy photo director. 

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In September of 2020, she received the unfortunate news that she was being put on furlough. A few months later, in January 2021, she was let go from her full-time position in light of financial hardships companies were experiencing due to the pandemic.

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“I’ve been wanting to pivot for a long time and this just gave me an opening and a reason to do it and the shove and the push that I needed to make the changes for the better,” Thibodeau tells Hoboken Girl

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Switching Gears

“I think COVID-19 in general put a lot of things in perspective for me. My life revolved around celebrity gossip and news, and nowadays, it’s irrelevant to me. There are just more important things to focus on and that’s my health, my well-being, and the people in my life.”

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Thibodeau, who has lived in Hudson County since 2003, says she has now found “a lot of little projects” that she’s working on and, so far, “it’s been great!” From starting a hot sauce company and selling CBD products, to now working at Amazon, she’s changed her career path to make a positive change in people’s lives.

“It’s just different. I like the idea of working for myself. Working from home is less stressful,” she says. “I just found something that I like to do that I feel like I’m helping people at a time when everybody needs a little help.”

Plans For The Future

Thibodeau says she started CBD to help with her daily commute into New York City, which caused “a lot of aches and pains,” having to take multiple forms of transportation and long workdays sitting at her computer, as well as the stress that came along with her job. 

“I had a lot of sleepless nights. I turned to exercise and I also found CBD, and I found that it just helped me calm down at the end of the day,” she says. “The news and everything — it was a stressful time and CBD was something I found to be the organic way of helping me relieve my stress.”

As a sales representative for CBD BioCare, she’s hoping to add to the list of products she sells, including bath essentials. She’s also working on creating a hot sauce that she will “ultimately brand and sell.” Eventually, she mentions she would love to get to the point where she can “have a little table at a farmer’s market and set up selling my CBD and maybe my hot sauce one day.”

Working For Celebrity Magazines

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Although she’s headed on a new career path, she still looks back and reminisces on all the fun and even crazy times she’s had working for the celebrity magazines, especially in the early to mid-2000s. 

“There was a lot of money that would be thrown around for exclusive photos and it was exciting, but it was a 24-7 job. You were working all the time,” she says. “If there was a wedding over the weekend, we were on it. It was quite a project — hiring helicopters and paparazzi and guys on the ground and in the air.”

Thibodeau recalls the “craziest time” was when Britney Spears shaved her head. “That was probably one of the craziest nights of my life, getting a phone call at 3 a.m. from a photographer in LA saying he’s standing outside of a barbershop and Britney’s going crazy shaving her head,” Thibodeau shares. “I couldn’t believe it. We had a bidding war [for photos] in the middle of the night.”

The former photo director shares the “biggest story” she covered was Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock. She also can’t forget all the beach photos taken of Kim Kardashian through the years, and scouring through photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie with their six kids. 

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However, the most exciting time for her was when something that was just a rumor or gossip turned out to be true — and being part of the photo team, she was one of the first people to find out about relationships, engagements, and cheating scandals. 

She recalls one instance: “It was rumored for a long time that Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton were dating. We were like ‘there’s no way they are dating,’ and I remember they were out one night holding hands and I was like ‘oh my God, it’s a real thing!’” 

Life in Hoboken

Thibodeau’s life today during the pandemic has changed in many ways, but a major change is the news she pays attention to, and the news she doesn’t pay attention to. 

“It’s the first time in my whole life I didn’t watch the Golden Globes {which aired February 28, 2021}, and I haven’t paid attention to the Kardashians and what they’re doing. It’s the strangest thing ever. I don’t know what’s going on in the [celebrity] world and I’m okay with it. It’s different now,” she says.

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“I used to be the one telling people, ‘Can you believe so and so just broke up?’ and now someone told me that Kim [Kardashian] and Kanye [West] got divorced and I was like ‘there’s no way!’ Then I saw it all over the Internet.”

After commuting into the city for many years — she lived in Weehawken and Jersey City in the past — she’s now considering moving to another state like Connecticut or North Carolina, especially since she is working remotely. But in the meantime, she is still going to enjoy living life to the fullest in Hoboken for as long as she is here.  

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Apart from shopping on Washington Street, some of her favorite local spots are Court Street Restaurant, Irish pub Carpe Diem, which has “the best bartenders” in her opinion, Low Fidelity in The Heights, or The Archer, which “hands down, makes the best drinks.” Her “favorite place in the world” though is White Star Bar in Jersey City {she raves about their veggie burger}. 

“I just love the area because we don’t have to pay the prices of the city. I love the view,” she adds. “You can’t beat the view of Manhattan from the Jersey side and anybody who says different, I’ll show them. I’ll take them to the best spots!”

To get in touch with Mary Pat Thibodeau, you can like her CBD BioCare Facebook page here and follow her on Instagram here. To shop her products, see here

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