I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen?
In the middle of the afternoon on July 13, I was working out in my gym. It’s a small time company called Fitness First located in Downtown Washington D.C. It was virtually empty that day with only eight people (seven males, one female) total.
In walks Will Smith. He walks in with a dress shirt and suit pants and immediately gets attention from five of the guys in the gym. One guy fist bumped him, others talked, and some asked for pictures. After two minutes, he walked out.
I later went to the receptionist and asked what he was doing here, to which he replied, “He wanted to get a work out in but said he was getting bothered. He said he would have stayed too.”
On that Saturday, I didn’t meet a celebrity. I caught a glimpse of a regular man trying to work on his own health but was inhibited by publicity. I instead saw a frustrated man looking to escape for a couple hours to a small time gym, hoping to get some alone time.
I’m a big Will Smith fan, and I’ll probably never see him again, but I was upset hearing and seeing one of the guys text and call his friends about how he fist-bumped a celebrity. The guy was trying to do his own thing and you scared him off.
Will Smith has been met, but I have never seen him and never will.
Andy Cheng 