Your intuition is directly at odds with how professionals in PR-focused industries - notably politics - tend to act. If you're prone to getting smeared, clamming up and giving them no handholds is absolutely the best strategy. "We know nothing about his personal life - what does he have to hide?" is a weak attack(not least because people still respect the idea of privacy), comments about you being "not up to the job" interspersed with pics of you barfing on the carpet is a much stronger attack.