I had to cover the red carpet the other night for Jay-Z’s performance at the newly reopened Hollywood Palladium on Wednesday. I loathe doing red carpet interviews—probably because I’m really antisocial underneath it all.
It’s the worst way to be forced to interact with someone. I imagine it’s probably a lot like speed-dating. “Hi there! You look great! Are you excited about the event? That’s nice. What do you think about (insert current event that everyone seems to be talking about)? Great insight! What projects are you working on for the future?”
Total blurg.
And everyone’s fake smiling and acting as bubbly and friendly as possible, answering the same four questions over and over as they proceed down the line, minding their p’s and q’s lest they slip and come off as unfriendly or alienating and end up on some gossip blog post that claims they were “acting the diva.”
So it was weird when Adam Goldstein (A/K/A DJ AM) showed up on the red carpet bearing evidence of his recent plane crash. It was a little jarring to see evidence that a world existed outside of this one of flattering lighting and photo-ops. He stayed at the top of the carpet, where the still photographers for major agencies snapped away for a few minutes and then he decided to skip the press line.
You could see that his hair had been singed off during the accident on one side.
It struck me as a strange sight, considering how the red carpet epitomizes the requirement that stars look and act perfectly. Not that long ago, close friends of Adam’s died in a tragic crash, but here he is having to smile for the cameras and utilize this spike in publicity to its fullest because in this business of being newsworthy, everyone is all too aware of their shelf-life in people’s minds.
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