Two days ago, LaineyGossip posted an awful blind item. As in, the subject matter was awful, not the blind itself. The blind was all about the “wedding gift” some friends made for a recently married couple. The “gift” was a “funny” video in which homeless people talked on camera about how they were super-sad to miss the celebrity couple’s big, fancy wedding. Because the “joke” is that homeless people are SO funny, what with their homelessness and not knowing where their next meal will come from, and the joke is that of course the celebrity couple would invite some homeless people to their wedding. If you couldn’t tell, I have no idea what the “joke” was supposed to be. Anyway, Lainey only said that it was NOT Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, and I think most people, even the blind-item-challenged, were like “Huh, I bet it’s Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel”. Yeah.
Gawker reported yesterday that Justin’s friend Justin Huchel, a real estate agent (“joke?”), was the one to make the video or organize the video somehow:
After the guests at Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel’s wedding were whisked to southern Italy via private jet last week, they were greeted by a video produced by Timberlake’s longtime pal, L.A. real estate agent Justin Huchel. The video had a gag: Huchel hit the streets of Los Angeles and asked a bunch of homeless people, street musicians, and transexuals to wish the multimillionaire newlyweds well. Funny, funny stuff.
The 8:30 video featured street interviews with ten people, many of them obviously homeless, premised on the idea that they were friends of Timberlake and Biel’s who, for whatever reason, couldn’t quite swing the trip to the Borgo Egnazia resort in Puglia for the nuptials, which were reported to cost $6.5 million. “Greetings from Your Hollywood Friends Who Just Couldn’t Make It,” reads the opening title card, “Featuring Sid, Chuck, Robert, and More!” Sid, Chuck, Robert, and others appear to be penniless and living on the street. Some of them are obviously intoxicated, mentally ill, or both, and at least one of them is entirely incapable of speaking.
“Justin and Jessica, I haven’t seen you for a long time,” one toothless man tells the camera. “I hope the wedding goes fine for you. My gift is in the mail.”
A male off-camera voice, apparently Huchel’s, asks the man when he last saw Timberlake and Biel, adding, “Did you and Jessica mess around?”
At one point, after commentary from an apparently transexual man, Timberlake’s “SexyBack” is played in the background.
Another glassy-eyed apparently homeless man woozily tells the camera, in a lengthy and rambling monologue, “Jeez I miss you so much. I wish I could be there.” (“There” being the $1,000-plus a night Italian resort hanging out with guests like Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg. “Here” being behind what looks like a McDonald’s.) Others mumble unintelligibly in response to questions about when they last hung out with Timberlake and Biel. When one shirtless man says he saw them at the L.A. Coliseum, the male voice asks, “were you performing with them?”
Gawker contacted Huchel, and his attorney sent Gawker a letter threatening to sue, which you can read in its entirety over at Gawker. The lawyer says, “Mr. Huchel made [the] video to be used and exhibited privately at Justin Timberlake’s wedding as a private joke without Mr. Timberlake’s knowledge.” I could parse that statement all day long. What is the “private joke”? Does Justin just spend his days, joking about homeless people? WTF? To me, this is the celebrity-gossip equivalent of Mitt Romney’s 47% video. What happens in private never stays private.
People Mag cover courtesy of People.com. Additional photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZma21paIB0e8muqq2hnpTBqrnBnqmlmZuawKCy0aKcp5yjlK6zsb6aZGagn6GytKvWoaaYpZGgsqC2zqScmK6ZmbKwv76woK2gj6m1pqvHqKSepJWowHA%3D