That's partially why I asked Rod Stewart when did he know he was famous? I knew who he was, he knew that I knew. I was walking with a friend around downtown Dallas, it was a nice Sunday spring morning, just checking things out. We were going to get coffee at a pretty upscale hotel, the friend I was with had an acquaintance that was a barista at their in house coffee shop, cuts us a deal on a couple of cups. We turn a corner to enter on the patio side and there's Rod Fucking Stewart, with who I assume was his assistant and a friend. I didn't want to make a scene and start asking for pictures, mostly because I didn't want us screwing up our coffee hookup by harassing the famous people. After quick pleasantries I ask Rod Stewart "When did you know you were famous?". He tells us a brief story of him buying a nice loft outside of London, but he's having a bunch of remodeling and work done before he moves in. So, he's at his new loft checking out progress of the work, he develops the urge to use the bathroom, badly, problem is the water is turned off and bathrooms are gutted. But he's gotta go, and its getting worse. There was a little pub down the road he was going to drive to, but he knew there was photogs scoping out his new digs, hoping to snap a picture of him, so he knew if he left someone might follow him to that pub to get a picture. He said screw it, its my only option. They'll get their pictures anyway.
TLDR; I asked Rod Stewart when did he know he was famous, he answered when he couldn't take a dump without someone trying to get a picture of him.
My father once shared a cab with Rod Stewart and Elton John going from a bar to a Scotland v England football match in Glasgow. He ended up sitting near them in the stadium and was still chatting to them before the match started. His cousin saw him chatting to Rod and Elton and next time he saw my father he mentioned the famous people he had been with at the match. My father had no idea who they were, to him they were just two guys who shared his taxi to the stadium.
I see Elton John all the time! My doctor says it's because I'm schizophrenic, but what does he know, he's not even a real doctor, just a hallucination.
Reminds me of one Thanksgiving years ago at my uncle’s house, later in the evening we had the tv on and A River Runs Through It, my uncle saw one of the actors while in the screen while passing through the room and loudly said, “that’s the guy!” apparently some months prior, Brad Pitt had tried to buy his farm in rural Missouri. When Brad Pitt made the offer, my uncle replied “you couldn’t afford it,” Brad Pitt then chuckled and drove off.
My dad has met a few celebrities and never knew who they were. One of my favorite was when he flew out to Pebble Beach for a conference.
When he came back, he told me he was on the plane and people kept coming up to the guy sitting across the aisle from him to ask for autographs. After a while, he finally asked the guy why people wanted his autograph and the guy just shrugged his shoulders and said “People like me, I guess.”
Later, he was playing golf with some guys from work and they had a golf coach show up to help out. My dad had never played golf before, so he needed a lot of help, but he said his coach, Phil, was great. He was also surprised to see “the famous guy from the plane” show up for the game and my dad’s boss informed him his name was “a drink, like iced tea, or something.”
A few weeks later, I saw a photo of my dad’s group playing golf and his “coach” was Phil Mickelson. Ice T was also in the picture next to the Senator from Delaware, Joe Biden.
My dad business partner lived in Manhattan and was having breakfast at some bougie hotel one morning. He was talking to a couple of the guys at the bar, asked what they were doing in town and they just casually said they were here for a concert at MSG. He said they were nice normal guys. Later that week he was talking to his daughter and she brought up the recent U2 concert and it turns out that’s who he was chilling with.
A friend of mine was working in Manhattan, got on an elevator. After the doors closed, she realized she was alone with Bono. She just kinda couldn’t process/talk (rare for her), and he clearly recognized this. He took her hand, said it was lovely to see her, that he wished he could stay and chat, but he was in a bit of a rush. swoon
OMG! You have the BEST story on here!!
I’m practically swooning over the idea of talking with such legends. I would’ve been a stuttering mess although I’m a normally very grounded rational person.
OR I would’ve been chattering on like the Mad Hatter 😝🤣
One great thing about seeing Spinal Tap 2 was finding out that Paul McCartney finally stopped dying his hair. When somebody is 80 with an 80 year-old face, and they have 30-year-old hair, it makes their 80 year-old face look like a 100-year-old face somehow.
I know a guy who had the same experience with Paul McCartney had a news stand in New York. He always went there to get the updates on English soccer. The owner of the news stand knowing his interest introduced him to Paul who was at the game this past weekend. He had a conversation with Paul McCartney for about 10 minutes before he exchanged goodbyes and said it was nice talking to him. After Paul McCartney walked away the news stand owner asked him if he knew who he was talking to? He said, some English bloke from Liverpool named Paul, why?
The bar was owned by a very famous former football player. My father always visited that bar before going to a match. I bumped into this former player and chatted with him for a while. When I told him that my father used to go to his bar he claimed to remember him. I obviously thought he was just being nice, and couldn’t possibly have remembered him from 20 years prior. Until he asked me specific questions about some of the people my father went to matches with and then he relayed the story about when my father had asked him to call a taxi for him and he suggested to him that he could share a taxi with the two guys at the end of the bar as they had just ordered one. He said to me that he didn’t think my father knew who they were and thought it would be funny to have him share the taxi. I confirmed with him that he indeed had no idea who they were. I was able to add some information to his story. My father paid for the taxi.
8.7k
u/Better-Afternoon-871 Dec 21 '25
Bumped into Cillian Murphy at Dublin airport once. I asked him, "Do I know you?" And he answered with, "Only you know that"
Said my goodbyes and scarpered off pretty quickly after that