Pete Wentz: Gobbing at the Bellagio
The new public relations firm for Bank, Shadow PR, worked hard to get me to go to the nightclub at Bellagio on Saturday to watch Pete Wentz of the moderately well known pop-punk band Fall Out Boy as he celebrated his 30th birthday. I was told that his much more famous wife, Jessica Simpson's little sister, Ashlee, would be there as well to gaze upon.
As much of a privilege as it is to look at famous people having fun to give a nightclub publicity, I passed.
Instead, I suggested that I get to sit at their table for 10 or 15 minutes to interview them and hang out with their posse to give readers a sense of how the hosting experience works from the front line. I knew there was no chance of Richard, Pete and Ashlee hanging. But the publicist was earnest and he had a new account to work. So, I told him to give it a shot.
My experience: Most celebrity hosts want to do the job with the least amount of shilling for the club. They even seem embarrassed that they are doing the work. There are important exceptions like, perhaps surprisingly, Paris Hilton, who is always willing to offer a short interview or pose for a photo. But mostly celebrities are being used by a club, and they are being compensated for that use and it fosters an ungenerous climate. And so, Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson did not want to hang out with me and I did not go to watch them hang out. Still, the evening had a surprising moment of drama. Shortly after midnight, the duo were brought into Bank and given a table at the center with their entourage. Then press types watch them drink and photographers shoot them enjoying themselves at Bank without having any direct interaction with the couple. The goal of the photos is to get them distributed nationally, thus bringing press to the nightclub. But that isn't how things worked out, at least for one photographer.
Melissa Arseniuk was there covering for the event for Las Vegas Sun when Wentz suddenly broke hosting protocol by engaging in a confrontation with one of the photographers. "It happened around midnight just after the entourage got there," Areseniuk told me this morning. "Fans and photographers were taking photos. I don't know what happened to set him off. Maybe the photographer said something or got too close to Ashlee. But for a moment it looked like there was going to be a fight. Instead Pete Wentz spit on the photographer. Security immediately removed the photographer."
Pete Wentz spits (or in punk rock terms gobs) at a photographer and the photographer gets removed by security from the club. See the celebrity advantage of Vegas! Wentz was sure proud of his celebrity bullying.
According to Arseniuk's account, published in the Sun, moments after the incident Wentz was dancing and sending out a Tweet: “I am the embodiment of Las Vegas right now.” Maybe so; but this is the embodiment of the Criss Angel version of Vegas where a powerful VIP abuses a worker bee with impunity. And, how very punk, too, picking on the little guy. Ian MacKaye must be proud to have inspired this brat.
Anyway, I am trying to reach the PR agency and find the photographer who got gobbed to get accounts of what sparked this run-in. But two thoughts: I doubt the photographer could have said anything over the volume of music at Bank that Wentz heard, nor, with all the security, could the photographer have gotten overly close to Simpson.
Photo: Sarah Gerke
