LAW ABIDING CITIZEN – IT’S A WRAP; GERARD BUTLER & JAMIE FOXX STORIES

The screen shots from the websites do not mean these sites were the culprits of the fanatical fans, just that they are sites where Gerry lovers can go, and not every fan that visited Philly was over the top, on the contrary some really did look at it as a vacation with friends with the added bonus of seeing Gerry. I really don’t think anyone got too out of hand, but I did want to put in writing of the extremes people will go to see the object of their desire, and frankly it’s not too far off the mark from the guy who made news by “stalking” Jamie Foxx. (For those of you who sent me an email, if you want me to remove it I will)http://gerrylicious.proboards.com/
This blog entry is a journey of the places, stories I heard and some of the snippets of the fan letters I received while Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler were in Philly during the filming of Law Abiding Citizen; I also want to say that I was really impressed by Gerard’s fan following as I received over a hundred emails from his fans asking me to give him a messages from him. Hopefully this blog will answer the questions I have been getting over the past few months “Where did Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx hang out while they were in Philadelphia?”

Law Abiding Citizen has wrapped and is in the post-production stage before it premieres in March 2010. Rumor has it that the producers would like it to premiere in Philadelphia, which goes to show that they truly appreciated the hospitality they received here.
Jamie Foxx slipped into town on Jan 1, after attending the Wired 96.5 LudiChristmas (Ludacris) Concert at Electric Factory, he went to dinner at Miss Tootsies on South Street for some good old fashion Soul Food. I attended Sabrina Tamburino’s 29th Birthday party at Table 31; it was there that several guests told me that Jamie Foxx would be going to G Lounge after dinner. Sabrina’s after party was also going to be held at the G Lounge. They said I could get that “First” shot that I always strive for of each celebrity that comes through our City. I was a wuss and went home to bed instead, it was 1AM and well I screwed up.
But as karma would have it I got a shot of Jamie the next day as he left Parc restaurant on Rittenhouse Square.

Dan Gross’ PhillyGossip.com Column

Jamie Foxx is lunching now on mussels at Stephen Starr‘s Parc on Rittenhouse Square where he also ate this weekend. The Oscar-winning actor is in town getting ready to start shooting “Law Abiding Citizen,” in which he plays a district attorney. His lunch companion is the film’s director F. Gary Gray. 12:41PM”At first I thought I’d have company, but then I remembered I was in Philly, and it was just me standing there across the street. I saw Jamie and a group come out of the restaurant, and anticipated them going in the opposite direction that they did. I hurried across the street, placed myself about 20 feet infront of him and began asking for a photo. No response, but he gently pushed his assistant to the right side of him and I got a clear shot, taking about 5 shots. Then I walked off in the other direction. A few days later someone tipped me off that Gerard Butler was eating at Del Frisco’s. I had no idea who he was so I looked him up online. One of the articles stated that in December he beat up a photographer that took a photo of him leaving a bar. Since it was a late Thursday night, raining lightly, and Gerard seems to have a temper, I passed.
Other friends, Arthur Kade and G-N Kang were there that night too and got this shot and put it on their facebook page. Never saw him before. Although I shoot movie premieres in NYC, I rarely see the movies. (Darn he looks like a nice guy)Over the next few days I was able to get a few photos of the filming, and by the end of the week I attended a press conference at City Hall to welcome the cast to Philadelphia. It was there that I saw the two stars of the movie: Jamie Foxx & Gerard Butler. I immediately was taken by Gerard as he said that the Liberty Bell was his Oscar until he got an Oscar. Plus he had all the City Hall employees swooning, but it would turned out not to be workers. In fact Dan Gross mentions in his column how he drove the ladies crazy at the press conference.At the time I took this shot I didn’t realize how ironic it was to have King Leonidas standing next to the beautiful Honduran wood statue with abs in the Mayor’s Reception Room. I now know why Butler has that look on his face as I would learn that a bunch of his fans crashed the press conference and were sitting in the front row and were rather vocal (kinda embarrassing for him as he was getting cat calls in the middle of the press conference).
I didn’t have a clue, at that time, to where he was staying, but there was no way I would ever give that info out even if I did know, but I suggested she send the item to one of the 5 luxury hotels and perhaps to the film office. She didn’t want to and instead told me she would travel from Ohio over the course of the filming to deliver the item. Of course it made me nervous, but with the territory of celebrity unfortunately comes this adoration, and most celebrities have security in place, and in 90% of the cases fans do not cross the line. (I was a little surprised that Gerard wore a dirty shirt to the press conference)
The fan sites took notice, and I started getting a lot of hits, and who doesn’t like people reading your stuff daily, by the thousands (Someone wrote me…Although touted as “officially unofficial,” Gerry’s manager and partner, Alan Siegel, communicates with Gerry’s fanbase almost exclusively through .Net. Of course, this “annoys” most GALS simply because they’d hoped Gerry’s personal appearance at the 06 Convention would give them some “cred” with his “people.” The translates into hard core “Tarts” having an certain air about them — that is to say that if it doesn’t come from .Net, it’s not valid. Whereas GALS is more “We’re Gerry fans, but don’t believe they’re the only ones.” )
Especially in other countries. Now I know how my name is spelled in Japanese. So I found my niche, I would try my best to find out what was happening in Gerry’s life daily. He likes to be called Gerry I later found out from my friend Aly, who became friends with both Gerry and Tim, Gerry’s body and stunt double.

That Saturday Gerard Butler went to G Lounge. He was denied entry, the doorman didn’t know who the heck he was. My friend Aly was there and is always on the list. She told the bouncers who he was, and then said he was her guest. She brought him in. After that he didn’t have anymore problems at the door.

There are no photos of Gerard as I would later learn he didn’t like his photo taken while he was in his “element”, so I never bothered going to G Lounge to see them, but I did collect the stories. After a few weekends, he and Jamie went their separate ways. Gerry hung out at G Lounge and Jamie made the rounds, mostly going to Denim, Miss Tootsie’s or Pearl Nightclub. Around this time I started receiving emails from fans who would come into town from around the states, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, asking me what they should wear when they went to G Lounge or how much it would cost for them to eat at Del Frisco’s. Now I was not advising any of these folks to come into town, but they did and all in the search of Gerry. I was both impressed by their mobilization, and surprised by their motivation. A Gerard fan wrote: I freely admit that Gerry is simply eye-candy for me. (This is through no fault of his own. He’s simply the product of genetic lightning. He flips my visual trigger — plain and simple. He’s got the best on-screen kiss that I’ve ever had the pleasure of using to get my motor running. His Scottish accent (which has been horribly diluted by all the dialogue coaches) provides a good ear-fecking, too.) Unlike most Tarts, I’m not up to dissecting the “beauty of his poor, tormented soul.” I don’t want to date him. I don’t want to marry him. I don’t fastasize about meeting him one day and having him suddenly realize I’m his soul mate… blah, blah, blah. One particular weekend I did hear that Lance Bass and a few folks from Dancing with the Stars would be in town, so I stopped by and got this shot with him and Cheryl Burke. I had hoped to see Gerry, but it turned out that he was out of town.
LAC took a 2 week break for the Oscar. I went to NYC to cover Fashion Week. I was able to get a few questions in to Gerard as none of the celebrity photographers recognized him at first, although his fan girls screamed with delight. None of the questions were earth shattering, just if he like Philly or not. I forgot to ask my regular questions as the fan girls were trying to interject themselves into the conversation.After the Justin Timberlake fashion show, Gerry left with this nice lady. (Who he was just photographed over the 4/11 weekend with in NYC) I had no idea who Gerry was or that he had a huge reputation as a ladies man, but here in Philly I did hear that he was “dating” a lot of women. He’s favorite place to go with these women was Del Frisco’s. My friends went to Del Frisco’s too. One night (3/17/09) I was tipped off that he was at the Waterworks restaurant, which is right across the street from me. I went over, but it was very dark. I thought to myself, how would I feel coming out into the parking lot and having someone snap my pictures. I decided that it wouldn’t be polite. I think if it was downtown I would feel differently. He later called one of my friends for a good place to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. She told him he should just stick to Rouge or Parc as it was late and the crowds would be rowdy. Now that I would have been able to shoot more easily.
He usually went out clubbing alone, but rarely left alone: I saw Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx inside the Vault at G on Saturday night. they stayed open late back there. i talked to Gerard and mentioned you and you two spoke in NYC! He doesn’t recall you from last week, but remembered my friend Hope Co***, they were on a boat together some time ago in Capri, Italy. (A few weeks later this same friend was at Rouge, which was Gerry’s hangout on Sunday’s. Gerry stopped by her table and they talked. She told him Hope said hi. He wanted to call her, but she said that hope was away that weekend and unreachable) When Gerry went to Rouge he often sat in the window unbothered. Although one time a girl did get up, greet him and break into song. Gerry was very nice about it, but my friend Renee turned around and told the girl this was not a Karaoke bar and to take it outside. Gerry told the girl that her singing was very nice and gladly accepted her business card.
Rouge is on lovely Rittenhouse Square, the tony section of Philadelphia. Many of the A – list people hang out the restaurants along 18th Street and enjoy the view of the park. On the other side of the park are the luxury hotels and apartment and condo buildings. Recently someone told me of a woman that was walking home from the local grocery store. She lived in one of the more expensive buildings with a doorman and car service. As she was reaching nearing her building her grocery bag broke. A man came up behind her and asked if she needed help. He assisted her the rest of the way to where the doorman was able to grab the bags for her. As she turned to thank the man she mentioned to him that he looked familiar. He said his name and that he was filming a movie in town with Jamie Foxx. He invited himself up (maybe longing for a home cooked meal), and she turned him down saying the nanny was upstairs with her baby and she needed to tend to her. The friend who told me the story also mentioned the woman stated she was married. (The person who told me was a prominent attorney in Philly, so I am going to have to believe this story happened)
A few days later the woman was sitting outside of a coffee house Rittenhouse Square, when a black SUV pulled up. The window rolled down and Gerry said hello. He invited himself to join them, she turned him down. (She wasn’t even his type, she was blond)

Once I heard about Gerry going into the coffee shop, with one of my friends, and many of the patrons took out their cell phones and took photos of him. Sometimes they would ask Gerry to pose with them, and he did, but after awhile he just asked them if they would respect his privacy. (I guess this is why he went to Rouge, Parc and some of the other more expensive places to hide from his celebrities. That’s why I like to wait outside an establishment to get my photos. I remember a couple times friends tipped me off to him being at a couple of those places telling me I should come inside and get a photo, but I just wouldn’t feel right doing that)
It was around this time that the emails from Gerry’s fans increased. It was like Whoppi Goldberg in Ghost, the spirits were coming out of the woodwork. They were always very nice, but I know they weren’t just writing for pleasantries, they wanted info, any shred of info, and sometimes with those little emails it did jog my memory of something. One girl wrote me every single day, until I wrote about that Strongbox appearance. Then she stopped. Then for me to find out later that he had a randy reputation irritated me that I was attacked over what I wrote. It was like the time I called Clay Aiken gay, and his followers went into a bee sting frenzy.

Well this was the night that I met the majority of the Gerry Gals. When I went over to City Hall to see the filming I met about a dozen fans, mostly women. Some traveled as far as South America. They were all linked together through the fan pages. The funniest thing was each was swore they were just a minor fan and not a crazy one. One even took issue with me as I had written a piece on my blog about a Nightline episode where they listed the levels of fans before they became stalkers. Some of them definitely were a bunch of friends getting together for an outing, others well they were seriously there to snag a Gerry hug.

Although most of the fan letters were harmless sometimes I worried about the state of their reality.
She did ask me if they were filming all week at City Hall, and I felt mercy for her and told her yes, especially since many of the fans I had talked to said the info was on the various message boards.

(Someone told me about this definition: Gerard Addicted Lust Syndrome or “GALS.”) I guess I am just taken aback a little by the fever these women have for Gerry. I do recall I was in love with Madonna in a big way, but never went to these lengths to get a glimpse of her, until this year when the opportunity arose and I photographed her for the first time. I was excited, but didn’t go out of my way to photograph her again since that day.

Another email: Three years ago, I had a wonderful and very unexpected thing happen to me. I met Gerard Butler. He’s truly what they say…a kind and, may I add, very
handsome man. I was in Vancouver with about 30 other ‘Tarts’ (a term given
Gerry lovers) to support a little known movie he filmed just before Phantom
was released. It was Beowulf & Grendel and it was very good. It was opening
in Canada on March 10th. Along with 2 other ladies, we drove looooong hours
to get there. We had to see the later showing that night. Actually, I had
seen the movie the previous October at the Vancouver Film Festival.
The next day, we had planned a get-together with the other Tarts to have
lunch and a raffle of ‘Gerry Items’ which included posters, homemade
pillows with pics of Phantom and Beowulf on them. There were drawings to
give away too. I did one of Gerry.
(Do you see the spoiler in this photo from the filming?)

(A friend wrote me this about Gerry)

Honestly I am not dating him… I met him a month ago and we had a blast hanging out. He tried coming home with me but I told him that I’m that girl but that he would always have a friend in Philly. So that is why he probably feels comfortable with me. These girls that jump into bed with them are one and done!

Trust me I was tempted but I would rather be friends with them then a one night stand.
http://www.gerryscorner.it/

At some point Gerry_Butler contacted me. He said that he was a she and knew I would run into Gerry at the party I was hinting that I was going to attend. She wanted me to offer the site to Gerry as she was receiving many, many emails from his fans. She felt terrible about it and realized it got out of hand. I asked about Demi Moore contacting her, what happened with that. She said she never answered Demi and then Demi unfriended her. She said if it was a negative or if she didn’t hear from me she would close the site in a weeks time. I think the power of Gerry went to her head and after a brief period of being dormant she came back in full force.

Yesterday she was finally shut down, but it looks like she came back as “FakeGerryButler” and the same girls that worked to shut her down, have embraced her. Maybe they missed “Gerry_Butler”, at least that created a central figure to represent Gerry and create a dialog.

I don’t think it was someone on IMDB, I think it is a fan, and it’s not someone that normally talks to DonnaKat as more than once the person wrote to say that DonnaKat was hot on her trail to expose her.2009/3/25 Gerard Butler via Twitter to me
Hi, I was out of town for a week. So he was a jerk? Wow. May I ask what he said to you? I’ll shut down of course. I don’t want to get sued.

Gerard Butler / Gerry_Butler–
follow me at http://twitter.com/Gerry_Butler
reply on the web at http://twitter.com/direct_messages/create/Gerry_Butler

At Strongbox: I asked Tim about Twitter, he said Gerry doesn’t have time to go online. I asked about the fans and what Gerry thought of them. He said Gerry appreciates their dedication, but wishes they didn’t go to such lengths to see him and wouldn’t show up at the film set. At one point the 2 crew workers who were there, turned on me when I told them about my blog, and showed them a few of the letters I had received (on my BB) from the fans. Well they were none too happy thinking I was the one giving all these gals the info. I tried to explain the elaborate websites and networking these women participate in. It’s impressive and scary, but there was no convincing this crew and my time in the VIP room was cut short as they further stated how the gals slowed down the production. Even though I told them they were 5 days ahead of schedule. They went on to say that an actor is in character and if there are screaming, women within 50 feet waving signs and flashing photos, that could ruin his concentration. And right after that is when Gerard Butler came in and told me about his “element” and I respected that, but as a blogger it’s my right to write about what I observed ie see the Strongbox Opening entry. It was not Kristi with him at Strongbox. It was someone that he knew for a longer basis than just that night, but he wasn’t with her that night, they are friends. I saw what I saw, but as far as that incidence goes it was an observation and speculation. I still am irritated that the fanbots got so personal with me, when all anyone, including me, needs to do is do a search on “Gerard Butler and girlfriends” to find out that he is a randy guy. It wasn’t something I made up. But it did give you all, especially the IMDB folks hours to obsess about – LOL
In February I did find out where Gerard & Jamie were staying. I had interviewed a young actor from a play that had a run in Philly. The kid told me he was so excited because Jamie Foxx was staying down the hall from him. I was like where are you staying? I never photographed them at their hotel, because as time went on I must have received more than a dozen requests from fan girls to the location of the hotel. Most of them just said we want to drop something off.
This is the 6th floor room that Gerard stayed in. (I took these photos last year while I was on a tour at the AKA Hotel) Over the course of the 3 months, I had over 5 women want to give GB their screenplays. 2 of them sent them to me, and I found myself getting caught up in the Gerry stalking just so I could make these fans happy, and maybe to improve their lives or something. Although I didn’t go too overboard. It was kinda weird for me to break the 4th wall and try and talk to him on their behalf. As soon as I wrote the details of the Strongbox incident, most of them dropped me, I guess they like living in their cocoon of fantasy. It was a rude awakening, so I don’t see the harm in revealing to my readers who don’t read the fansites, some of the emails I recieved. But to really get a flavor read the fan sites.)
With this view of Rittenhouse Square Park. On the last day Gerry was in town, he spent a part of it with my friend Aly. She told me that Gerry enjoyed Philadelphia and was going to London on Saturday for an awards show. He took out his phone and also showed her a few of the photos that he had taken on set. Unfortunately I now know the end of the movie, which I won’t be sharing with you. The other photo was of Gerry nude with just a sock on. It wasn’t shocking to Aly that he would show her this as she knows many of his war stories, Gerry is a ladies man, and he considered Aly his friend, although it still is odd he would show her those photos.
Many of you may be aware of the Jamie Foxx incident that occured there. Steven Taliver, 49, pretended to be one of Beyonce‘s producers to get in to see Jamie. After the actor realized he didn’t know the man, Jamie pushed him out of his Philadelphia hotel room and slammed the door. The man was arrested earlier this week when Jamie’s security team noticed the creep lurking near the set of Jamie’s new movie, Law Abiding Citizen, and called the police.My Theory is: The man was homeless and probably lived on the corner. No doubt Jamie gave him a nice chunk of change, as I heard he was very generous. The man probably wanted a few bucks again and created his new ID and presented it to the desk clerk, who called up to Jamie. Jamie probably ok’d the visitor and as soon as he opened the door recognized the homeless guy and pushed him out. Thankfully the man was dumb enough to return to the scene and Jamie’s security guys collared him. Jamie seemed none to worried and the story didn’t even come out til his last day in the City, as he gave a shout out to the Mayor and the citizen for their hospitality. It was interesting to how TMZ broke the story, how did they get it? I do think it’s fine and fun to travel to the premiere’s, conventions and to the Cities where your celebrity filmed his last movie, maybe even visiting the set once, but don’t get confused with a celebrities politeness and turn it into something else. He’s not your friend, and he probably is a little scared of you too, but what is he going to do yell at you so you could go back to the boards and report it. Remember Rebecca Shaeffer, John Lennon, Selena who was killed by the president of her fan club. You might not see yourself going over the line, but I’m sure someone in your life is telling you you are.
On the last day Gerry was here, he ran to Boyd’s to buy a few parting gifts for the crew, and for his friends back home he said. (My blog was featured on Jossip because of the comments I recieved from Gerry’s gals)