Joe Hagan is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair. He has written for New York, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Sticky Fingers, his critically acclaimed biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, was named a Top 10 book of 2017 by The New York Times. Dwight Garner called it “a joy to read” that “feels built to last,” and New York magazine called it “a colossal achievement … fast-paced and compulsively readable.”

His magazine work includes long-form profiles and investigative exposés of some of the most significant figures and subjects of our time, including Dario Amodei, Bobby Kennedy Jr., Gavin Newsom, Paul McCartney (parts one and two), Beto O’Rourke, Stephen Colbert, Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Dan Rather, and the states of Florida and California. In 2010, he discovered the diaries of singer Nina Simone and wrote about them for The Believer. In 2026, with photographer Tim Davis, Hagan documented the listening cafes (jazz kissas) of Japan for National Geographic.

He lives in upstate New York.