The A-List Assistant’s Guide to Picking a Mother’s Day Gift for Your Ultra-Wealthy Boss

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For some A-list assistants, securing the right Mother’s Day gift for the boss’ mom can be a daunting challenge. When flowers or five-star spa days won’t cut it, what does one get for the client whose gifting budget knows no bounds?

“Assistants move mountains for a living, but some things can’t be solved with money,” not even for Mother’s Day, Celebrity PA Network founder and director Brian Daniel tells The Hollywood Reporter. His headhunting service pairs high-net-worth families — think royalty and celebrities — with service staff and runs a private concierge for top-tier clients. “If it were that easy, then everyone could just throw money at a problem, but things are never that easy, especially in Hollywood.”

Other PAs just need to get their celebrity clients’ creative juices flowing. Meghan Grimm, founder of Clyde Staffing (and former personal assistant to Jennifer Lawrence), explains, “I’m the one who’s helping brainstorm. For Mother’s Day, everyone loves a pajama set or slippers, or something cozy like a bathrobe. I always say it’s something that you never want to buy for yourself, but you’re always happy that you get it gifted.”

Here, Grimm and other assistants share their go-to gifts for mom, while Daniel reveals the Danny Ocean-esque feat required to pull off one Mother’s Day surprise (with NDA-breaking details excluded) to spark ideas for planning a five-star experience for your own loved ones.

Meghan Grimm, Clyde Staffing

In 2020, Meghan Grimm stepped out on her own to found Clyde Staffing, which has matched stars such as Anne Hathway, Uma Thurman, Mandy Moore and Finneas O’Connell with five-star PAs.

“I’ve gotten so creative over the years because I’ve had to do this for work,” say Grimm. “When it’s my boss’ birthdays, you want to get them the most special gift because they give you the opportunity to work for them. I always say that giving someone a memorable gift is something that they’re going to hold onto forever.”

As for the best gift she’s given? “For one of my boss’ birthdays, I made her a custom gold charm necklace with photos of each of her children and their birthstone … she wore it every day. [For another] boss, I made her a custom guitar strap that she wore on tour.”

Below, Grimm shares her go-to gifts that are always a hit for birthdays, Mother’s Day and other celebrations.

Goldbelly Meals

“Goldbelly meal kits have always been a great hit. If someone has a favorite cuisine, you can go onto Goldbelly and send a pasta-making kit from Roscioli in New York. I like to get creative on Goldbelly.”

Boarderie Mother’s Day Classic Cheese & Charcuterie Board

“Another food gift idea is a very beautiful cheeseboard with delicious cheeses and crackers, but they also get to keep the board.”

Mixbook Kids Art Book

“Mixbook can turn photos of your kids’ artwork into a book. So if you take photos of the artwork and you send it to Mixbook, they can actually print a hardcover book of your kids’ artwork, which is very cute.”

Furball Faces on Mugs, Bowls and Books

“If someone has a pet, [some gift ideas are] a pet’s face on a mug or a custom dog bowl. There’s actually a famous photographer in New York, Christian Vieler, who takes photographs of pets getting treats thrown at them. That’s always a fun gift. You can buy a Mixbook coffee table book [that tells] the life story of your dog.”

AndSons Chocolatiers Signature Collection

AndSons Chocolatiers in Beverly Hills does these custom-painted boxes; they’re really beautiful designs. Let’s say your boss has just wrapped a movie. You can ask them to paint some scene from the movie on the chocolate box, or write Happy Mother’s Day or draw a photo of her and they’ll do it really beautifully.” 9548 Brighton Way, Beverly Hills or and-sons.com

Caviar

“If you want to go a little bougie, Caviar Russe does amazing caviar kits. We actually have a partnership with them, so they will gift our clients discounted caviar sets.”

Kyle Ursin, Celebrity Assistant

The Fancy Teddy

Kyle Ursin, who has worked with Hollywood hairstylist Rita Hazan and other celebrity beauty and fashion pros, says, “The Fancy Teddy is always a hit. It’s a collectible art toy stuffed with healing crystals. It’s one-of-a-kind. My clients started asking for it as “the teddy with good vibes.” If the gift receiver — say, his client’s mom — is a Disney adult, Urskin finds the cuddly, gem-embedded plush is an “unexpected gift that lights up the inner child of someone who has everything.”

Brian Daniel, Founder and Director, Celebrity PA Network

The founder and director of Celebrity PA Network recalls one elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-esque plan — during his days as a personal assistant — to secure a private Mother’s Day meet-and-greet with a music industry icon for his then-boss’ mom. “She had always dreamed of meeting a particular (old-school) Grammy winner. It was especially difficult to pull this off because this particular A-lister isn’t that fond of doing private appearances, even for a fee,” he shares.

The long con took two weeks of “pulling favors to circumvent her agents so I could find an ‘in.’ I found out that the ‘gatekeeper’ was very fond of old typewriters and was an avid collector. That made me remember a friend from acting class (at the time) who had a storage unit full of junk,” including props from Wizard of Oz, rare books, phonographs and one “exceptionally rare” antique typewriter.

“He didn’t really want to part with it; he didn’t need rent money at that moment, I suppose. To motivate him, I offered him an autographed David Bowie album. I knew it would be his Achilles’ heel. I didn’t particularly want the album anyway, and I had it because someone gave it to me as collateral for a loan because he needed to pay rent — another actor from acting class. I kept the record because I never got paid back, and that guy moved back to Arkansas or wherever he was from.”

Leverage secured, Daniel hatched a plan to “accidentally on purpose” interrupt a coffee meeting between his friend and the gatekeeper. “When we were all leaving and walking into the parking lot, I opened my car trunk and said to my friend, ‘Hey, man, look at this piece of junk that I just got at a yard sale. Maybe this thing is worth some money.” The ‘gatekeeper’ looked at it and turned white.”

“We went to the star’s mega-mansion because she didn’t want to go out in public. We were only supposed to be there, literally, for five minutes — that was the deal,” recalls Daniel. “Turns out, the boss’s mom and the star really hit it off and were like old giddy high school friends. The star made us all tea, and we were there for over an hour. The celebrity showed us around, and her walls were like a monument to rock n roll history. There were tons of awards and photos of her with other legends on the walls. She told us a lot of great stories. The memories. Priceless.”

More recently, Daniel helped an assistant in his network fulfill an A-list meeting-and-greet.

“I have a private VIP concierge service that is only for my clients who have made placements through my agency. The assistant’s boss’ wife (who is also a mom) wanted to meet an unnamed A-list star, and the boss was trying to make it happen for Mother’s Day.

In this case, the star does personal/private appearances, but it costs $1 million. Needless to say, that was out of the question. The wife I was trying to help does come from ‘money,’ but not that kind of crazy-insane-ridiculous money where you could just throw away $1M on a whim,” he says.

“Coincidentally, I know that star’s voice coach,” explains Daniel. “I called [them] and asked if there was some way to make a meet and greet happen. He was very reluctant because, as you know, these business relationships with big stars are very ‘fragile,’ and you can get yourself in serious trouble if it’s found that you were giving someone access and ‘abusing’ your professional relationship — especially in this situation because the star charges an appearance fee of $1 million.”

Daniel’s creative workaround? Enlisting the boss’ wife to play “assistant” to the voice coach at the precise time that the star showed up for their vocal lessons. “I suggested the following: ‘What if,’ I said, ‘the wife was your ‘assistant,’ and she just happened to be getting something out of the trunk of your car for you? He thought about it for a day, and then he called me back and said he would do it. The following week, it happened.”

Parked a half-block away from the studio with the boss and his wife, Daniel kept a close eye for the make and model of the star’s car. “The talent usually arrives about five minutes early and waits in their car because they don’t walk into the studio until they see the previous student walk out. When I saw the star pull up, I phoned the wife (the fake assistant), for her to be on standby and she waited on the phone with me in real time.

When the celebrity started walking toward the door of the studio, I said to the wife, ‘NOW!’ She walked out of the studio (which had been rehearsed beforehand for timing) with the trunk key in hand, she opened the truck and grabbed a backpack, turned around, and WHAM — the meet happened.”

Though the conditions of the unofficial meet-and-greet included no autographs or selfies, Daniel “did get the whole thing on video from a distance with the express condition that it was only for the family and never, ever to be shown in public or put on the internet.”

The client paid “an undisclosed sum as a ‘success fee,’” while the voice coach went home with a “vintage bottle of Dom Perignon for the favor,” adds Daniel.