Ever wondered what it would be like to meet a famous celebrity? To take a picture with them and ask them questions like “What’s your favorite color?” Some students and teachers at Northwood have gotten this opportunity.
“It was really exciting. When you get up to meet the person you’re star struck,” sophomore Karen Vanderford said. “You hear the music or you see them play on TV, but for them to be actually in front of you is like an ‘oh my gosh’ moment, because you’re right next to them and so many people know who they are.”
Sophomore Gaby Cila has met many celebrities, including singers Conor Maynard, Cody Simpson and Ed Sheeran. Vanderford has met Cody Simpson and Ed Sheeran with Cila; as well as meeting singers Alan Jackson, LeAnn Rimes and football player Hakeem Nicks.
Cila’s favorite was meeting Sheeran with Vanderford.
They met him through a last minute contest that Cila had won. They went to Charlotte for a private concert, which included roughly 40 people, and were able to come face to face with Sheeran at the meet and greet.
“I was really nervous and I didn’t really know what to say,” Cila said. “He performed three songs and one of them was my favorite, so I told him ‘I’m so glad you performed “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You.” [Sheeran] said ‘Aw, thanks, I did the extended version.’ I said ‘I know it’s my favorite.’ I don’t remember the rest because it was all a blur. I was so excited.”
In Cila’s opinion, Sheeran is the nicest celebrity that she has met.
“He was really caring to the fans, especially since the radio station was rushing him a lot, and he said ‘No, no, give me more time,’” Cila said.
Her second favorite celebrity encounter was meeting Cody Simpson at a radio station. Vanderford was with her this time as well.
When meeting Simpson, Cila was dared by Vanderford to ask Simpson: “If you were a chair, which celebrity would you want to sit on you?”
After she asked the question, she thought the question might have been too personal.
“I was like ‘oh God no, I shouldn’t have done that,’ but he thought it was hilarious,” Cila said.
Simpson actually answered the question and said that model Miranda Kerr would be his choice.
Not all celebrity encounters are fairy tales and can turn out to be quite the opposite.
Dance teacher Leah Smith was in her senior year of college when she met singer John Mayer. It started when she and some of her friends listened to songs he had put up on a website before he was famous.
“I have never listened to another one of his songs or records because I was so upset and off put by his behavior,” Smith said.
They all thought his music was great and decided to write a message on his message board online. He messaged them back and said if they needed a place to stay, then his apartment had room. The next thing Smith knew, she was packing up the car to drive to Atlanta for his show.
After the show, Mayer went to the grocery store with them to buy pizza and Peeps. Then they went back to his apartment to hang out. Smith describes Mayer’s actions as inappropriate.
“He and his roommates played music and told stories and it turned out that [Mayer] was quite a bit of a jerk,” Smith said.
Later on while working at a radio station, Smith invited Mayer to East Carolina University to perform at an annual festival they have every year. He opened up for Biz Markie in front of only eight people.
At the festival, Smith got to take some photos with Mayer.
“While taking a picture, he decided that he was going to pull a jerk move and not be nice, and I disliked him even more than I already had,” Smith said. “I think everyone has seen through the media that he doesn’t necessarily know when to shut up and that was my experience with him as well, but he is a very talented human being.”
Junior Tori Poole also had a negative run in with a celebrity. Poole met actress and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi at a Carolina Hurricane’s hockey game when she was 12.
Poole went to go get a photo with the celebrity and what happened next disappointed her.
“She was really stuck up and said ‘Make it quick.’ She was just really mean about it. So we took the picture and she wasn’t even smiling. It was pretty pointless and I hated it,” Poole said.
Poole has met the whole Carolina Hurricanes team, and got to meet her favorite player, Eric Staal.
Despite the Hurricanes loss that night, Staal was still nice to Poole and was willing to take pictures with her.
“He was really cool,” Poole said. “Even though they got massacred.”
– By Lauren Merrill