The only thing that would concern me about any of this is the fans that are
not very knowledgeable about Brian might believe some things that may not be
true. They wouldn't have any other frame of reference to go by, because
they don't know who Brian's friends are and are not. Not everyone stops to
think that a celebs friends and acquaintances aren't going to pass on
details and tidbits to just anyone, they just figure they've met someone who
is giving them some little tidbits. I've run into people over the years who
pretended to be friends with Brian, to know Brian, and even to *BE* Brian.
And, though I do know a couple people who are actually acquainted with
Brian, none of those people were telling the truth, and one even had been
banned from contacting Brian from what I've heard.

There was a rumor several years ago that Brian had a daughter he hadn't
talked about, and had kept her out of the limelight because he didn't want
her to have to deal with all of that. Most people reacted by saying how
nice it was that he was protecting her the way he was and so on. Then
someone else piped in saying yes, it's true, I live near Brian in San
Francisco, I've seen this girl, and she and Brian are not close. Then
people started to jump into the conversation who were not fans of Brian, and
they started attacking him and so on. Then some of his fans started talking
publicly about trying to contact Brian and suggest he might have to address
these rumors somehow.

Once that happened (a lot of this happened over at AOL) a couple of AOL
members came out and admitted they had started this rumor about the daughter
themselves just to see how far it would get. The guy who claimed to live
near Brian in SF was a friend of theirs, and just helping to fan the flames
so to speak. Apparently they were afraid it had gone too far at that point
so they decided to fess up before someone actually did contact Brian.

But it's another example of how easily (and how quickly in this age of
internet and e-mail) celebrities can be hurt and news can be passed, etc.

It's also an example of how you can't always take things at face value,
especially when you hear it from a supposed 'friend' or an accquaintance of
a celebrity. There's a reason why you can't find a 'reliable' source,
Wendy. Why would someone close to a celeb pass 'inside' info on to
strangers who might use it to hurt that person? You wouldn't, but other
people might. One of the few instances I know about personally where an
insider passed on some information to fans that was legit was when the
father of one of Brian's skating friends passed on some stuff to some fans
at a skating event. That wasn't anything that would have hurt Brian, just
something showing Brian had a sense of humor.

Gail
anthrogail1@...
"Enjoy every sandwich."--Warren Zevon
"Freedom isn't free."--Various
"Remember the heroes Who fought for the right to choose.
Remember the heroes We've all got a lot to lose." --
Sammy Hagar ('Remember the Heroes')

>Subject: Re: [Boitano] help stop a bb fan fraud
>Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:36:40 -0600
>
>I¹d recommend ignoring her and if it gets bad enough that Brian wants to do
>something about it, then let him handle it. If you try to obtain accurate
>information, then you¹d be disrespecting his privacy IMO. I think he can
>handle his fans.
>
>
>On 12/24/06 6:27 AM, "wen_bax" <wen_bax@...> wrote:
>
> > hi. i'm a long time fan of bb, but have never cared much about prying
> > into his personal life.
> >
> > i work with a number of skating fans, and one of these women has
> > convinced a number of people that she has a personal connection to
> > brian and a lot of inside information about his life that i simply
> > don't believe she actually knows. some of the things she says about
> > him is damaging to his image (but no, it isn't about
> > his 'orientation'), and as someone who genuinely admires him i would
> > like to do my bit to shut her up for good.
> >
> > some of the more benign information she claims to know about bb
> > includes the names of his children and his (she says
> > recently 'former') wife. the names she used seem unlikely to me, and
> > if i could confront that simple information from a reliable source
> > (which i thought would be much easier to find than it is!), i may be
> > able to stop her lying altogether. can anybody point me to a source,
> > or at least give me accurate information that i can say came from
> > people who *really do* know?
> >
> > happy holidays to all.
> >
> > wendy
> >
>