KEY POINTS:
When ballroom dancer and precious treasure Brendan Cole was declined entry into Auckland's La Zeppa bar one Friday night last year because it was full to capacity, he had no choice but to join the end of the queue outside on the pavement and wait with the hoi polloi. He had arranged to meet a friend inside and he was running late.
With a face like thunder, Cole joined the line and scowled at the burly bouncer with the thick Northern English accent. 'Doesn't he know who I am?' the expression on his face conveyed. 'I'm a celebrity godammit! I'm even more famous in England! Surely this guy must recognise my chiselled face, my toned torso, my dancer's limbs!' Cole looked to be thinking.
If the doorman did recognise him from the telly, he wasn't showing it. This is New Zealand. The land of the long white wait with the others, dude. No red velvet rope special entry for local stars here. And so Cole waited.
Until, like a knight in shining armour but wielding a pen and a pad, a gossip columnist came to his rescue.
Coincidentally, I happened to be standing inside the doorway having just arrived myself, and so I had witnessed the whole hilarious scene of Cole's no-entry. Feeling sorry for him, but sorrier for the poor bouncer having to put up with Cole's pouting, I tapped the doorman on the shoulder, pointed Brendan out - who by this time was practically waving in my direction in an attempt to find someone, anyone, who recognised him - and lied. I thought I'd do a charitable turn for a schleb. I said Cole was with me, and so he gained entry.
Brendan stormed in, but there was no "thanks Rachel"; no "appreciate that"; not even perhaps a more predictable "thank god someone recognised me at last!". Cole the tosser showed no form of gratitude whatsoever. He raced in, looked around for his friend, before sauntering off to pretend the whole embarrassing saga hadn't happened.
By another coincidence, I too had been invited to join the same friends - fellow Dancing with the Stars schleb Brendon Pongia and his gorgeous agent - much to Cole's shock and chagrin, and so I shared the story to explain our tardiness. Cole wasn't the least bit amused, but then Cole who specialises in the art of taking himself too seriously, wouldn't, would he?
As his biggest fan, Cole often feels the media has been unfairly harsh to him. He whined as much on an episode of 20/20 in May this year. He reckons gossip columnists "have no morals, no scruples and stop at nothing to get a story." Rather hypocritically, at about the same time as that unpaid-for outburst, Cole, the friend of chequebook journalism, sold the story of his relationship to model Zoe Hobbs to international celebrity gossip rag Hello magazine over nine glossy pages.
And he's done it again.
In the issue due out on newsstands on December 2, Cole bangs on about his very recent romantic proposal to the aforementioned Hobbs (not to be confused with former flame Katrina Hobbs) while in Paris.
"I was a nutcase," the Kiwi-born dancer bleats in Hello mag, "I wanted it to be perfect and it's not always easy to make things perfect. On the train there was a mix up with our seats and then I realised I'd left my suit jacket at home. I panicked about the ring coming up on the security check, which would mean opening the box in front of Zoe but that didn't happen."
Phew!
Melodrama aside, Cole got his answer, and the happy couple told/sold their engagement news. Now don't call me a psychic, but how much do you want to bet the wedding story will be negotiated for? Biggish pounds, I'm guessing, though nothing, of course, on Jordan's monstrosity of a wedding. Cole's not in that league. And then there's the honeymoon; the first baby pictures; the he said/she said divorce. You know the schlebrity drill.
Here's some of our favourite Brendan Cole images.
Rachel Glucina
Pictured above: Brendon Cole. Photo / Anthony Phelps
