Oh yeah, I saw it. That kind of delusion is AMAZING! She’s BFF with Serena, don’t you know? Doesn’t matter that Serena didn’t invite Megs to HER wedding. I have no idea where they come up with some of these things like her supposed friendship with Amal since 2014?! Um, where’s the proof? Even Celebitchy was like, why were George & Amal sitting in prime seats?
No mention of Megs and Amal being friends while Megs was living in Toronto, and Amal was living nowhere near Toronto!
This why rolled my eyes so hard during Will & Kate’s US tour, but at least that one was official receptions and it felt like it was the celebs wanting to meet Will & Kate and not the other way around.
This is obviously the Slutsexes kowtowing to a bunch of celebs they barely know and letting them use the wedding for self-promotion and merching.
“The wedding was very well done and beautiful but I am really confused by some of the celeb attendees there. “Suits” cast, Beckhams, those I get, but Serena Williams, Oprah & the Clooneys too? I very much doubt they are close friends or good friends at all with those. “Invite close friends only” my ass. Their weding, their guest list – but I wish the KP didn’t release such contradictory statement.“ – Submitted by Anonymous
The Clooneys weren’t invited for the second reception at Frogmore, their name wasn’t on the list. And they had to wait outside Frogmore for almost 15 minutes…the problem were the pics that were published….Since it happened…Bubly, Poply, Poople thought about a way to fix, because someone read the website and saw the pics. So Meghan decided to dance with him and Harry thought it would be a great idea to ask Kate to also do it. #ThanksAL
Like I said. That visit to oprah and the last minute invite to the wedding wasn’t for nothing. Oh no but they still innocent, and her interview is a bigger paycheck now that the wedding has happened.
The only one of those three I’m aware of has some sort of connection to the royals, and it’s Idris Elba. He received a grant from The Prince’s Trust when he was a struggling actor, and he also received a CBE last year.
“Tom Wolfe writes Big and Tall Prose—big subjects, big people, and yards of flapping exaggeration. No one of average size emerges from his shop; in fact, no real human variety can be found in his fiction, because everyone has the same enormous excitability.” —James Wood
The writer Tom Wolfe, who died today at 87, argued that modern American fiction has fallen into sterility and irrelevance because novelists aren’t looking at the world. (Photograph by Henry Leutwyler / Contour by Getty)
Harry wouldn’t know how to deal with Keanu’s lack of bullshit and humility. Harry should take tips from him though! Keanu has had to deal with more than enough tragedy and sorrow in his life, and he’s still made it through life.
Can we appreciate Keanu’s action star skills? I still remember back in 1994 on Siskel and Ebert that Roger recommended that the Academy should take note of Keanu’s performance in Speed. Obviously Keanu is never going to be nominated for an Oscar, and he doesn’t care. But he’s still contributed a huge amount to cinema. I can never forget that jump he did from a moving car to a moving bus. No wires. No tricks. Just accuracy and not becoming road kill.
– Keanu was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon to a British mother and a father of Hawaian-Chinese descent. Biographical accounts vary as to precisely how old Keanu was when his drug and alcohol addicted father abandoned the family, but he himself remembers that the last time he spent a vacation with him was at age 13. Then the man vanished for a decade (doing prison time too).
– Keanu grew up having one step father after another, as his mother married four times in total.
– Both Keanu and his sister suffer from dyslexia, which made their school years a bit of a struggle. He went to 4 different high schools within 5 years.
– When he was 22, he suffered a horrific motorbike accident in the middle of the night, which left him lying on the pavement for almost thirty minutes with his abdomen sliced open. A truck almost ran him over while he was screaming for help. When the paramedics arrived and tried to take him to the hospital, one of the guys dropped the stretcher (just fabulous). He spent a week in the hospital with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen which eventually had to be removed. The accident left a big scar on his stomach.
– Another accident shortly after that sliced his shin open down to the bone, and his teeth got capped so badly that he had to have them all veneered.
– When Keanu was 27, his sister was diagnosed with leukemia. He lovingly took care of her in all the years she was sick, and around 1999 when she went into remission, he donated a vast sum to hospitals that treat leukemia patients. He also established his own charity, a foundation for children´s hospitals and cancer research. However, he doesn´t want his name to be mentioned, he just wants to make sure the foundation can do what needs to be done.
– When Keanu had just turned 29, his best friend and acting pal River Phoenix died in front of the Viper Room nightclub from overdosing on a Speedball (cocaine and heroine mix).
– In 1999, when Keanu was 35, his then girlfriend Jennifer Syme was pregnant with their daughter. The couple was preparing to welcome baby girl Ava Archer Reeves in the new millennium. However, only 4 weeks prior to that – tragically on Christmas Eve of 1999 – Ava was stillborn. In January 2000, instead of bringing home their little girl, Jennifer and Keanu had to bury her. Only a few weeks later their relationship fell apart over their grief and inability to cope with their loss. Keanu and her remained very close friends though.
– On April 2nd of 2001, while he was in the middle of shooting The Matrix 2, Jennifer lost control over her vehicle driving along a boulevard in L.A. around 6 a.m. and was killed in a horrific crash. After Jennifer´s sobbing mother had phoned him, Keanu made a call to the coroner´s office to find out if it was really true – and asked if they needed him to come and identify her. He was spared this sad duty. When Jennifer was buried though, he was one of her pallbearers. After completing the shoot of the Matrix 2, he used his money to buy all members of the stunt team a Harley. He no longer cared about any material wealth.
– Around 2015 he learned that his sister had a relapse and was battling cancer again.
Keanu regularly takes paycuts, so that film crew members can get a bonus.
Keanu rides the subway and gets up to offer his seat to elderly and sick people, pregnant women, moms with little kids.
If he can avoid it and it isn´t part of his promotional work that he has to do, he never, ever attends any celebrity parties, red carpets, fashion and award shows. He doesn´t talk about his private life.
He doesn´t shmooze around with rotating flings and girlfriends on red carpets and out for paparazzi. He has never married, has never divorced.
He doesn´t whinge and complain about how he was picked on and “racially abused” because he is mixed race.
He doesn´t talk crap about his relatives, he doesn´t smear his deadbeat father although he would have every reason to.
He got ridiculed and called a “wooden, talentless actor” but has managed to have a stellar career.
He donates a ton of his money to charities.
Not a single person in the industry who has worked with him on a movie set has ever said a bad word about him or accused him of misconduct, sexual harassment etc.
Keanu has read ALL of Proust´s work, he reads Shakespeare and can recite his sonnets by heart. And if you buy him a beer and share a cigarette with him, he´ll talk to you for hours about anything as if he´s known you for years.
I have nothing but mad respect and love for Keanu. Keanu is the shit. Keanu is The Chosen One.
This man is truly a treasure.
He holds Canadian citizenship and american green card. “Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries.” He is an amazing human being. 🤩
It fit the theme, which was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination. It’s not just a ballgown with a head piece, aka Blake NotSoLively. That said, I think Rihanna’s outfit must have been annoying to sit on with all those pearls and beads. I would have been uncomfortable.
I think the best of the night was Zendaya’s Joan of Arc look:
I think my favorite dress in the “ball gown” category from the Met was Emilia Clarke’s Dolce & Gabbana dress:
Rihanna attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City.
Rihanna attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City.
Rihanna attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City.
EMILIA CLARKE @ the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art | May 7, 2018 in New York City
Rihanna attends the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City.
“I really like Meghan. She’s done some great work for women.“ – Submitted by Anonymous
Wait what? Seriously (this is my serious voice) please explain. Because this is what I have.
1 – trip to Rwanda
1 – to India about pads followed with an article (haven’t seen anything else)
1 – video for UN women
1 – long ass day involving one young world
1 – one event for dove
———– 5 – that’s 5 things, some of which were not just for helping women. I’m really confused, maybe I’m missing something. I don’t count her blog because it was filled with chocolate red wine, pink water trips, living beyond your means if you are middle class or lower, and volunteerism which is disgusting (look it up). Technically Meghan works the same amount of hours Harry does at his engagements, and her character isn’t in every episode. Oh and saying she with Harry that’s why she doesn’t do anything is no excuse, her track record is pretty damn shallow before he came along. So again I like details, receipts, and please enlighten me/prove me wrong. Also, who are you comparing her work with women to?
Oh, please, people, stop buying into the crap pr. You are better than that.
This is a fandom that knows charity work. This is a fandom that counts the Cambridge’s work days. This is a fandom that calls Kate out when she skips the EACH gala because we know the fundraising is important. This is a fandom that sees straight through the KP pr bs.
Are you really buying Meghan’s “charity” work? Seriously?
Well, don’t.
It turns out you can actually quantify how devoted and effective celebrities are at their charity work. Nifty, uh?
Look to the Stars is the IMDb of charities, or maybe charity Tinder would be more accurate, as they match causes and celebrities. If a charity wants to partner with a celebrity, they can look up the profile and see if this is someone who would potentially be interested in what they do, and also works hard for his/her causes.
[Caveat: This was the only site I could find with this kind of info. If anyone knows of a better resource, please let me know]
So we can actually check and see how Meghan’s “humanitarian” work stacks up.
Meghan has two charities listed. TWO. No, Myna Mahila is not listed. She did that work for WorldVision, not the Indian group. Shoebox isn’t listed either, as she basically just wore a bracelet.
In addition, some of her “support” activities are not mentioned, like the UN speech or the period stigma essay. The site mostly lists donations and fundraiser appeals and appearances. Those are the things that bring money, which is what the charities really care about. The rest is just pr.
So, is that impressive? Can two charities and little substantive work qualify as “doing so much for women”?
Well, Look to the Stars actually ranks the celebs. That makes sense because they are trying to help charities figure out the celeb that would be the best match for their cause. This is useful because we can compare what Meghan has done to her peers.
One of Meghan’s categories is “Women.” Here are the top celebrities for that category.
So where does Meghan rank in the list of celebs connected to (that’s the site’s default ranking mode) the cause of “Women?” Well, I actually subscribed to the stupid site to get that data. Yep, I took one for the team.
She is the 772nd celeb most devoted to the cause. That’s out of 799 celebs listed.
She’s waaaaaay at the bottom.
Yep, as a women’s advocate, Meghan is ranked right below noted gender-equality supporters Albert of Monaco and Ronaldo.
Note that this is a US-centric list. We’re the only country in the world where no one knows who Ronaldo is. You have to be pretty near invisible in North America to be sandwiched between Ronaldo and Nandita Das.
Now, I didn’t expect her to outrank Oprah or Bono, but, dear heavens, this is a truly pathetic showing. The top of the list isn’t all heavy hitters, after all. Annie Lennox is there and Kathy Najimy and Bethenny Frankel…
Wait, Bethenny Frankel? That Bethenny Frankel.
She’s one of the top charity supporters for women?
Yes, she is. She does a ton. I was surprised too. She’s passionate about women starting careers and is a stalwart Dress for Success supporter.
Compare that to Meghan’s profile. Megs’ looks kind of skimpy, doesn’t it?
But what about the other categories? Maybe Meghan does better there?
Well, “gender equality” is supposedly her passion and she has been UN affiliated since 2015, so let’s check that one out. The category only has 86 celebs listed so it should be easy for her to rankin the top fifty right?
Nope. She’s 79.
But, hey, she beat Courtney Love. Kudos, and brownie points for even being on the same list as Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, who isn’t really a celeb but whatevs.
But guess who ranks higher than Megs on the “gender equality” list?
Lisa Vanderpump. Yes, that Lisa Vanderpump. She’s #59.
Turns out she’s quite active in the charity world, and she really is passionate about dogs. That wasn’t just a tagline. She has charity that works to eliminate dog torture.
So, yeah. Lisa Vanderpump has done more for the cause of gender equality than Megs and, as she says in her RHOBH intro, Lisa doesn’t even like women. She likes gays and dogs.
Let’s give this one more try.
In “Health” Meghan is 2,501 out of 2,559 celebs. Guess who vastly outranks her in this category at 706 out of 2559 celebs?
Nene Leakes. Yes, that NeNe Leakes.
Nene loves soldiers and champions for heart care. She had a heart attack a couple of years ago and has apparently dedicated herself to the American Heart Association ever since. Who knew, right?
She had a freaking feud with Star Jones on Celebrity Apprentice regarding the charity.
BTW, NeNe also beats Meghan In the “children” category, where she is 2,088 our of 2643 (it’s not one of her primary interests). Meghan (who supposedly champions “women and girls”) is number 2465. Megs barely beats Christopher Reeve and Dick Van Dyke in that category, and those guys are both dead.
She cares more about children than the dead people. We can give her credit for that.
Notice that I’m not even bringing in JLO, who shares Meghan’s publicist and leaves everyone in the dust. JLO, like Eva Longoria, is an A-lister who really cares about Latino causes. I’m not comparing Megs to Emma Watson (#4 in Women) or Miley Cyrus (#2 in Children).
I’m just using marginal celebs for this comparison. Bethenny, Lisa, and Nene are part of the Real Housewives franchise, for Pete’s sake. They are well below Meghan in the Hollywood pecking order.
In case, you don’t know, this is what the Real Housewives shows are known for.
It’s a tacky reality show full of drunken women fighting over nothing. There’s a lot of box wine and fake tanning. These gals are not exactly the poster girls for philanthropy
And yet they destroy Meghan on the charity front. Even Nene Leakes who actually reneged on a $20k pledge to Detroit Public Schools.
I wish Look to the Stars offered the data without subscription. It’s really amazing what little known celebs are doing out there. People who aren’t household names are out there championing children and animals and other causes.
The opportunities Hollywood gives them are enormous.
What Meghan has done with those opportunities, however, is pathetic. Christina Grimmie, who was famous for being in a music competition and was tragically murdered last year, did more charity work in her brief time in the limelight than Meghan did in all her years in the industry.
Yep, 772 out of 799 makes you a “civil rights crusader.” Right there with noted civil rights crusaders Prince Albert and Ronaldo.
That’s the truly offensive part. She’s doing eff-all for charity and is trying to sell herself as an “activist,” “humanitarian,” and “civil rights crusader.”
This is BS. Yes, Hollywood exaggerates. Yes, you’re allowed to toot your own own horn.
But, no, you don’t get a freaking Noble Prize for doing a photoshoot in India. Get real.
Meghan has so far spent ten days working on charity during 2017. She spent ten days working for charity in 2016. She spent ten days working on charity during 2015.
That’s not even a hobby. That’s a yearly vacay.
It’s thirty days TOTAL. In THREE Years.
That’s 30 days out of 1,095.
2.7%.
Those are the numbers, people, in black and white. And don’t tell me numbers don’t matter. We argue over the royals’ end of year stats every January.
No, Meghan, you don’t get to parlay your yearly volunteerism vacation into “humanitarian” status.
That’s BS.
And yet Sunshine Sachs is plastering the world with stupid “humanitarian” and “activist” headlines. You don’t see Lisa Vanderpump calling herself a gay rights “activist” and, dear lord, she was grand marshall of the Long Beach Pride Parade.
“Her last two breaks from shooting Suits” makes it sound like she spent months working for WV and the UN. She spent a week each year. Suits breaks for four months.
Or this little gem, where the publicist says Meghan was “honored” for her humanitarian work in Vanity Fair as if she’d been given an award. In reality the magazine just wrote an article on the conference.
Sorry, toots, no one who has worked on a single cause for five years ranks 772 out of 799 in the Look to the Stars “Women” category. NO ONE.
And, yes, people are going to fall for it. There’s a reason why her publicist is sneaking all of those “breaks” and “five years” into her press. She wants people to assume that Meghan has been spending all her free time cleaning latrines in Rwanda.
She hasn’t. Instead, she’s been doing this.
When you look at the numbers, she’s done way less that reality show zelebs who guzzle pinot grigio and pull off weaves.
No, I’m not kidding about the pinot grigio. It’s a staple of the show.
Don’t buy the hype, people.
It’s not real, and it’s deeply offensive that they think we’re buying it.
Yup! I know someone who saw AJ live on Conan back in early 2000 when she was on promoting Girl, Interrupted. She said it was glaringly obvious back then she was doing the bad girl act as part of her schtick. But, hey, she got the Oscar she so desperately wanted!
Yup. I remember that too. Another stunt to get the press’ attention. That’s what she truly cares about though. I remember reading a book that stated the relationship between AJ and BBT was never about love and sex. It was about covering her ass after her psych ward lock down and making out with her brother. Whatever she could do to change the subject from her previous pr fiasco.
I don’t get the Garner hate either. All the celebs use their little schticks to keep their press profile up. I’d rather they left the kids alone, but Jolie is now traipsing around the world using her kids for promo and Lainey loves her for it. How is that different form Garner?
Yup. Jolie pimps her kids out every chance she gets, and Lainey never remarks on it.
OMG. I’m not sure where to start on that one. I used to like her a long time ago. I started getting annoyed when she kept pimping her kids out every time she had a movie or needed to promote something. The final straw was the bullshit manner she conducted her separation from Brad. It was all completely unnecessary.
Ted Casablanca was totally right about her. I remember him saying that when AJ decided she was going to be done with Brad that she would just dump him cold, which is exactly what she did in the most public manner possible.
People forget that in 2000–not long after she won her Oscar–AJ actually checked herself into the UCLA hospital psych ward for 72 hours because she was supposedly suicidal over not being able to marry Billy Bob Thornton. I don’t believe she was actually suicidal over BBT. She was probably suicidal because she had pinned herself in a corner by trying to be super edgy during the 1999-2000 awards season by kissing and making out with her brother.
Remember, she said she was “so in love” with her brother, Jaime, while accepting her Oscar.
She’s done a good job making people forget about all of this with her UNHCR work and adopting tons of kids. She’s the same drama queen as her father, whom she cut out after her life after he went on national television saying she needed help for her serious psychological issues. Probably a very accurate statement regarding her but that clearly wasn’t the right way to go about it.
Ted Casablanca had a blind item that most people believed as about Angelina Jolie, Fake à la Ferocity.It basically tells you that AJ never really gave up heroin. Instead she moved on to the pharmaceutical kind of opiates.
I just can’t with her at this point because she pimps out her kids. None of those kids are going to be able to function as adults. And she is SO skeletal when you see pictures of her. And hardly anyone in the press mentions it.
“Gal Gadot brought Wonder Woman to millions of new fans. Her portrayal was magnificent and powerful, capturing everything that Wonder Woman represents. She and I are lucky to be members of this small sisterhood, living and breathing this uniquely strong, smart and charming superhero. […] Wonder Woman has helped transform how women and girls see themselves since she emerged on a TV show in 1975. She represents what we know is inside every one of us: fierce strength, a kind heart and incredible valor. Gal understood and captured the spirit of this complex, independent, fully feminine persona. I applaud her for all of her success.” – Lynda Carter honors Gal Gadot for TIME 100 List.
I don’t have Beyoncé in my header. Must be someone else you’re thinking of .
This is the full header I like to use usually:
Beyoncé is okay. I think there is a little too much worship of Beyoncé these days. Comments in this thread are pretty close to my opinion, particularly the top two:
Eartha Kitt speaking truth to power at a 1968 luncheon at the White House hosted by Lady Bird Johnson which resulted in Kitt being blacklisted in the US for nearly a decade.
let it be known that on January 18th, 1968, Eartha Kitt stood in a room full of white women at The Women Doers Luncheon, GOT IN LADYBIRD JOHNSON’S FACE, and told her that the government was sending the best of the youth off to be shot and killed and, in not so many words, that THAT was the reason the youth were rebelling. She ALSO stopped President Johnson after he made a statement claiming that mothers should be responsible for stopping their kids from becoming criminals and asked about “the parents who have to go to work, for instance, who can’t spend time with their children as they should”. It was brushed off by LBJ who only mentioned the funding for day care centers put in place by the recently passed Social Security bill, and then more or less said that the women at that luncheon should figure it out for themselves.
She was blacklisted, but she defended every word she said that day.
i’m just gonna leave this here as a reminder that “hitting bottom” doesn’t mean “staying on bottom for the rest of your life and dying as a piece of crap”
I will never, ever, not reblog this.
*huggles RDJ* Anyone on here who loves him, someone posted an amazing story about him when he was younger. I wish knew where the link was so I could share it. Instead, it’s just cut and pasted below. If I find the link, I’ll replace it with that.
I will also say that I have read this several times now and it still makes me cry.
“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt
I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.
Mine does.
His name is Robert Downey Jr.
You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.
It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.
I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.
I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.
We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.
We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.
The volume of blood was staggering.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?
Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.
He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.
He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.
She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”
He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”
He was a movie star, after all.
Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.
We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.
I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.
But I didn’t.
Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.
I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.
I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.
He remembered.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”
He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”
In a recent podcast interview with David Axelrod, former NBA star Charles Barkley talks about how NBA legend Bill Russell persuaded Barkley to stop publicly complaining about how much income tax he paid (transcription by Steven Greenhouse).
Bill Russell called me one time… He says, “Charles Barkley.” I said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Russell.”
“You grew up in Alabama. Right?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He says, “Did you go to public school?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He says, “Did the cops ever come to your neighborhood?” I said, “Yes sir.”
He said, “Any of the houses ever on fire and the firemen come?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said, “I don’t want to see your black ass on TV complaining about your taxes anymore.” I says, “What do you mean?”
He says, “So now that you got money you don’t want to help other people out, but when you were poor, other people took care of you.” And I says, “You know what, Mr. Russell, you will never hear me complain about my taxes again.”
And it was a very interesting lesson for me, because I do think rich people should pay more taxes. I’m blessed to be one of them, and we should pay more in taxes. I learned my lesson. I never complain about taxes.
I think Bill Russell needs to make a few phone calls to Congress…
House of Brat 