The “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Wrap Party

Two weekends ago, Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, invited me and the Grim Cheaper to do a little stalking of the wrap party for the hit ABC television series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition at a venue in Culver City.  The GC was not at all happy to receive Pinky’s invite, of course, but once I heard that former Bachelorette Jillian Harris was going to be in attendance, there was no way in heck I was missing the thing.  I absolutely loved Jillian both as a contestant on Season 13 of The Bachelor and then when she later starred on Season 5 of The Bachelorette, and I was absolutely dying to get a picture with her.  So, much to the GC’s chagrin, the two of us found ourselves heading out to Culver City at around 6 p.m. two Saturdays ago to get our Extreme Makeover stalk on.  One of the first celebs to arrive on the scene was Kathryn Joosten who plays Karen McCluskey on fave show Desperate Housewives.  Kathryn immediately spotted Pinky’s new dog, Sammy, while walking up to the venue and asked if she could hold him in the pictures she took with us.  Like I told Pinky last week, that dog was the best thing to ever happen to her stalking career, as he attracts attention, especially of the celebrity kind, wherever he goes.  I have yet to see a star turn down Pinky for a photograph request when she’s holding Sammy.  Note to self: get a cute dog, stat, or at least find one to borrow for celebrity events! 

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Jillian Harris arrived at the party pretty early on and I have to say that the girl could NOT have been cooler or more down-to-earth.  As you can see, she also wanted to hold Sammy in our pictures.  She even asked me to take a picture of her posing with Sammy on her iPhone.  How cute is that?

Jillian was absolutely HILARIOUS and stayed around to talk with me and Pinky for quite some time.  Chatting with her was like chatting with an old friend and after she left Pinky jokingly said, “Would it be weird if I slipped her my number?  I so want to be her bestie!”   The thing is, Jillian was so cool that had Pinkie done that, I bet she would have called her up and asked her to hang out sometime.

Also in attendance was Dijon Talton, who played New Directions member Matt Rutherford during the first season of Glee;

Sterling Beaumon, who played Young Ben on Lost;

and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition designers Tracy Hutson . . .

. . . and Paige Hemmis, who is SO much taller in person than I expected her to be.

All in all it was a great night and all of the celebrities in attendance were super nice.  I wanted to mention here, though, for those stalkers hoping to visit the LA area and get photographs with celebrities, that doing so requires countless hours of waiting around and a tremendous amount of patience.  I do not just show up to events and filmings, get my pics in five minutes and then leave.  Pinky, the GC, and I were at the Extreme Makeover wrap party for a good four hours.  And while it was a success, I can promise you that not every event I attend is all sunshine and roses.  I have had some TREMENDOUS fails.  One of them just the other day, in fact.  Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, and I had set out to do some stalking of the filming of True Blood at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles and at first things seemed extremely promising.  The main security guard on duty was SUPER nice and told us we could hang out and watch the shoot as long as we did not take any photographs of the set or of the actors while they were filming, which we respected.  She also told us exactly where to stand to catch the actors leaving the set and said that they were all usually very nice and more often than not posed for pictures with fans.  So we waited.  And waited.  Then, after about five hours, actress Fiona Shaw walked outside and we asked her for a photograph.  Well, not only did she turn us down flat, but she immediately walked over to the policeman on duty and told him to kick us off the property!  And that was the end of that!   I guess the show had had some problems earlier in the week with people posting spoiler photographs from the set, but still!  We had been respectful the whole time, stood quietly off to the side of the filming, told the security guards exactly why it was we were there, and followed all of their requests, so to get kicked off, by Fiona Shaw of all people!!!, was a serious shame.  But you win some, you lose some.  Which comes to my point.  The moral of the story is this – if you are coming to the LA area and are hoping to get photos with a star, be prepared to wait around for long periods of time, be prepared for your request to get turned down, and be prepared to go home with nothing.  Chances are, if you are respectful of the crew and the filming, you will be successful, but I just didn’t want my fellow stalkers to think that stalking was always a walk in the park.  (Pictured above is the only photo from the True Blood set that I got that day.  Stephen Moyer is pictured below the pink arrow.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this one, but you can catch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition each Sunday night on ABC.  You can visit the show’s official website here.