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Close Brushes with Fame Thread

Here is my best one: I was a sailing instructor a couple summers during high school. We normally set up racing courses for the kids to sail around, using buoys and we would ride around in motor boats giving instructions or helping if any one capsized. One afternoon we sent the kids back to the beach and were going to pick up our buoys and there was a little sunfish sailboat with its rudder stuck on one of them. The dude’s head was down as he was reaching under the boat to get free buoy line and we roll up and shout “hey can we help you?” He looks up and respondes “oh ‘allo, yeah cheers mate.” We were all speechless, it was fucking Paul McCartney. We freed his boat sent him on his way and sang “NAH NAH NAH NAHNAHNAHNAAAAAH NAH NAH NAH NAAAAAAH HEY JUDE...” as he sailed off. He turned and waived. We felt pretty good about saving his life.
 
I was stayed at the same resort as Payton Manning a couple years back, and saw him chilling at the pool we were at.
 
Ate at a restaurant at the same time as Jennifer Garner. Said "Hi" to me as she walked by even though I was a total stranger. Total Sweetheart.

Glad to hear this. A good friend of mine was at a wedding she was at. He had an in as his wife went to HS with Garner. Chatted her up for about 15 minutes, and said she was awesome. She has been a celebrity crush of mine ever since.
 
After a Tom Jones concert in the 70's, my brother's freshman year WFU roommate's sister's best friend had sex with Tom.
 
I'm amazingly face-blind when it comes to celebrities, so I may have had a few encounters that I don't know about. My second day on Wakes campus, I played quad football with a guy named "Minkus", and just assume Minkus was his real name.

Saw congressman John Barlow at a farmers market in Statesboro. Pretty exiting, I know.

Saw George Lucas at the Star Wars museum in DC (he was fairly easily recognized, and thus mobbed).

Fethullah Gulen-the guy who Erdogan accused of trying to overthrow Turkey in 2015 lives in exile 3 miles from my house in PA, and my dad has met him-they both do interfaith outreach in the community, and the retreat that Gulen is had routinely has Thanksgiving dinners for the area.

Met Johnny Mize at a card show in PA. Got his autograph, but lost it. (He was well before my time, but I read a lot of baseball history stuff as a kid).

Edit: not me, but my aunt knew Andy Warhol pretty well.
 
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Whilst on a first date with the hottest chick I’ve ever dated ended up at the Roosevelt hotel in Hollywood that has a 2 lane bowling alley in it, and all the way down the lane there were lounge chairs. Got our drink and walked down and sat at the first one available and looked across and said to my date “I think that’s the dude from Twilight” and she’s like “ya sure?” And I say “yeah, and that’s the chick from twilight”

This was a short while after she got caught cheating on him with her director and they hadn’t been seen out since.

I texted my friend who was gonna meet up with us that they should come by, guess who’s next to us, and she responded back to take a picture but I didn’t look at my phone again.

Apparently at that time it was the height of their popularity and millions of people were interested in whether they’d get back together.

A certain prolific female poster posts on a board involving celebrity gossip and mentioned my story. Someone else on said board found an Instagram photo where someone bowling was hashtaggiing #roosevelthotel #twilightcouplehere #noyoucantbowlwithushaha

And this became independent confirmation of the meeting. Again, these people have not been seen in public together, and a photograph supposedly woulda been worth about $50k

This news then proceeded to on thousands of twilight fan tumblers and blogs. I received a PM on here “hey...... just so you know..... your little story is going viral”

Twilight fans are split into 3 groups. The Robsians who like him and hate her. The Krisbians who like her but hate him. Then the other group that wants to see them together. These groups were in constant battles on the internet and my news was devastating to the Robsians and the Krisbians. I spent about 2 days at work being fascisinated by people’s reactions. Then I spent the new few days trolling fake news about what I saw that night as I was now a trusted news source. One can still probably google twilight couple Roosevelt hotel.
 
I have two:

Kid Rock was best man at my friend's son's wedding. I'll let you all Google and drive yourselves crazy. But, yes. He was best man at his wedding. One of the nicest and most down-to-earth people I've ever met.
And he goes by "Bob" (real name is "Robert") when not on tour or in public.



Played nine holes of golf with Jerry Lewis back in the 90's. Very quiet and opposite of his on-camera persona. But, very nice and quite a good golfer in his day. RIP.


Forgot one: My lifelong friend lost his girlfriend to Ric Ocasek (lead singer of The Cars). She moved to Manhattan for a design gig. Met Ocasek and the rest was history. Lasted maybe 18 months.
My friend has never been the same since. Fucked him up pretty bad.
 
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Chris Dunn, Olympic high jumper (1972) was in high school with me.

Also the late Kris Ciesinski, international opera star, was a HS classmate.
 
I was stayed at the same resort as Payton Manning a couple years back, and saw him chilling at the pool we were at.

That happened to a friend of mine and Antonio Gates, right after Gates blew a fantasy matchup for him.
 
Delivered a ping-pong table to a so-baked Rasheed Wallace that it took me and his boy who was there at the time around 15 minutes to convince him that he'd actually ordered it. Dude was funny as fuck though. Will always be my favorite Tar Hole by a mile.

I also watched a Duke/Carolina basketball sitting in between Erskine Bowles and Liddy Dole 3 rows from the floor in the Dean Dome about a decade or so ago. The ping pong table delivery was a significantly better experience though.
 
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Forgot about one. Was drunk as fuck at about 3 AM on a Sunday morning waiting for an elevator at the Westin. Warren Sapp walks out of the elevator. My dumb ass thought it was a great idea to ask "what the fuck are you doing here?" He was not particularly happy with that question, so I quickly got into the elevator and prayed.
 
IN the Charlotte flywheel class with Kurt Busch and his wife. Had Paula Broadwell in front of me in class one time. I understand how she might tempt David Peatreaus

At a Wake football game against Florida State in about 2007, I sat on visitor side. Saw a guy who looked like Jack Nicklaus chatting with a guy wearing wake stuff standing in the concourse; asked a florida state guy in concessions line who he was, and he said it was Jack, watching his grandson play

Finally, had a client who was Paul Newmans stunt double for 30 years. We drank beers with Newman at Ballentyne hotel bar on afternoon of Cars movie premiere . No entourage, no extras, just a cool dude having beers watching Indy qualifying and bitching about how Roger Penske betrayed CART series to go back to Indy......that was a great moment John Lassiter and Bob Iger where roaming around the lobby
 
I rode the AirTain in Denver next to Lou Holtz. Does that count?

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Did he spit on you?
 
I have two:

Kid Rock was best man at my friend's son's wedding. I'll let you all Google and drive yourselves crazy. But, yes. He was best man at his wedding. One of the nicest and most down-to-earth people I've ever met.
And he goes by "Bob" (real name is "Robert") when not on tour or in public.

Bob Rock?
 
feel like I probably could have been Paul Newman's stunt double in Cars
 
Hung out with Russell Wilson a few times in college, as a good HS friend was on the State baseball team. Good dude.
 
Oh, forgot that Coach Greer had Chris Sabo come to a winter hitting camp at Wake in like 88-89. Got to demonstrate soft toss with him, and got an autograph on his rookie card.
 
My house is directly across the lake from Matthew Mcconaughey’s Austin house, see them walking around and shit at their place. That’s about all I got.
 
Was taking a steam at Lake Hickory Country Club when Yogi Berra joined the steam. He didn’t share any Yogisms.

Volunteered at Fight Night in Atlanta one year and had drinks with Joe and Marvelous Marvin Frazier after the event. They were fun to joke around with. They went out partying after drinks.

Ran into Roger Staubach at Studibaker’s in Dallas. Nothing to see here. He was out dancing with his wife.

Ran into Anthony Geary at a bar in Park City, UT. It was just like he was in his Campus Disco on the soap opera - General Hospital.

Met Bob Dole walking around downtown Hickory. He was much more interesting and funny than I expected. He was also pretty tall. Later, he came into our office building to visit the boss. He was introduced to the staff individually. When it was my turn, he pointed to me and a colleague and said “I already know those guys.”

When I lived in Dallas, I used to go to a bar called the Chaise Lounge. It was founded by Richard Chaise after they kicked him out of Dick’s Last Resort. Some guy in a black cowboy hat came in and joined his buddy Bugs Henderson on a tiny stage. He never said anything and would not make eye contact. He did it a few times, never announced. I thought he was pretty good. Turned out to be Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But the best one might have been in Winchester VA on a business trip. I was waiting on a colleague to go out for dinner. In the Hampton Inn lobby was an odd looking guy sitting by himself. It was Gallagher. Did not have any watermelons with him for smashing. Turns out that he was performing at a county fair.
 
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