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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we'll wrap today's show on a lighter note, as we sometimes do, with your stories about meeting your idols. Listeners, have you ever met a favorite celebrity? How did it go? This could be any kind of favorite person; your famous musician, athlete, politician, some radio hosts much more famous than me. If so, how did it go? Were they everything you hoped they would be, at least for that momentary encounter? Was it a lovely experience?

Did it happen how you always imagined that it would in your head, or were they not what you expected? Maybe not as friendly or kind-hearted, at least in your brief encounter? Did you walk away feeling unsettled or embarrassed? Call or text us with your celebrity encounters and how that went. There's an old saying from somebody, I forget who, that says you never want to meet your idols. Was that the case for you when it actually happened? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

Why do I ask? Well, I'll take you behind the scenes a little bit. Originally, when we thought of this call-in, one of our producers had an experience while working on the show a few weeks ago where she met someone she was a fan of. During our check-in process with the guest, she thought she would be talking to the guest manager, but instead, the person she's a fan of answered the phone. The experience was lovely, and she walked away from it feeling great, but not all fans and celebrities enjoy these kinds of encounters.

By now, you may have heard of the rapidly rising pop star Chappell Roan. Maybe you've seen her NPR Tiny Desk Concert that's racked in 6.5 million views on YouTube or heard that she broke the record for the largest crowd in history of the Chicago music festival, Lollapalooza. Well, she took to TikTok to set some boundaries with her fan base last year. Here's a 45-second excerpt from her video, edited for time.

Chappell Roan: I don't care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous, whatever. I don't care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I've chosen. That does not make it okay. That doesn't make it normal. It doesn't mean I want it. It doesn't mean that I like it. I don't want whatever the [bleep] you think you're supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity.

I give [bleep] if you think it's selfish for me to say no for a photo or for your time or for a hug. That's not normal. That's weird. It's weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online or you listen to the art they make. That's [bleep] weird.

Brian Lehrer: That's bleeping weird. Listeners, have you met your favorite famous person or any favorite famous person, it doesn't have to be the one you're most fan of off anybody in the world, and come away from that experience wishing you hadn't approached them? If you're one of our local listeners living in New York City, you've probably run into a celebrity at some point. It's New York. What are your personal rules for approaching them? I wonder if anybody's listening who would be considered a celebrity and if you happen to want to call in and say whether that Chappell Roan clip speaks to you.

Not to discredit her boundaries at all, it's normal not to want to be stalked and harassed, that's for sure, but not all celebrities want to step out to say, "Don't do this, don't do that." One celebrity who's very open to interacting with fans is Hasan Piker, the most popular political commentator on Twitch. He's got nearly 2.7 million subscribers on that streaming platform. Number one there, I guess. Last week, he was swarmed by fans at the DNC, and while he did express discomfort toward those who made him uncomfortable, he took pictures with everyone who asked. In one instance, he even did this.

Fan: [unintelligible 00:04:22] sorry to bother you.

Hasan Piker: What's up? You want to take a photo?

Fan: Yes, I just realized I left my wallet that way, so I need to go back and get it for my lunch break [unintelligible 00:04:30]. Can we take a picture with you?

Hasan Piker: No, no, I got you, whatever you got.

Fan: What do you mean? No, it's okay.

Hasan Piker: No, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it.

Fan: No, it's okay. I'll go get my wallet.

Hasan Piker: No, you have a lunch break. Come on.

Fan: No, it's okay.

Hasan Piker: I got it. I'll buy it for you.

Brian Lehrer: Hasan Piker bought that fan lunch. Even that's a great story. Right? One other thing about him, though, he's a celebrity himself, he's not immune to geeking out over someone he's a fan of. All of his fan service seemed to grant him some good karma. Here he is meeting one of his idols at the DNC, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!

Hasan Piker: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Excuse me. Oh my God. I'm such a big fan of you. You're amazing. Can I take a photo with you?

Amy Goodman: Yes, you can.

Hasan Piker: Oh my God.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Listeners, have you ever met an idol? Have you met the person, a person you're a big fan of? How did you navigate that, what we might call parasocial relationship? The fact that you know so much about them, but they were meeting you for the first time. Were you glad you met your favorite celebrity, or did the encounter burst your bubble? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls and texts right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls and texts on the question, have you ever met one of your idols, a favorite celebrity, and how did that go? 212-433-WNYC. I'm going to start in a place probably nobody expects me to start. Text message says, "I met Pizza Rat. It was a bit pretentious." I guess they don't know Pizza Rat's gender and didn't refer to the Pizza Rat as a they, but rather an it. "I met Pizza Rat. It was a bit pretentious. Pizza Rat ate the pizza with a fork." Beth on the Lower East Side, you're on WNYC. Hi, Beth.

Beth: [laughs] Hi, Brian. I'll do this as quickly as I can. I've actually called about this before, but I'm a big fan of Gregg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs. I saw him on the street, and I very care-- I usually just really give celebrities their space and respect their privacy, but I'm such a big fan of his. I approached him very gingerly and he couldn't have been nicer. We stood outside of the Strand for about five minutes talking about how much he loved New York, and it was wonderful.

Then I went home and I wrote him a note thanking him for his graciousness, and he wrote back to me. I have a handwritten note from Gregg Popovich. That was a thrill. The other person who I'm a huge admirer fan of is Brian Lehrer. I went to a Yankees game with you back in maybe 2015.

Brian Lehrer: Oh. We did that with a group of listeners, yes.

Beth: I won the lottery. It was-- One of my daughters--

Brian Lehrer: Uh-oh, how was it?

Beth: Oh, you were lovely.

Brian Lehrer: Was I obnoxious? Oh, good. [chuckles]

Beth: [laughs] No, you weren't obnoxious at all. I have a picture of you with my daughter who had just graduated from fifth grade, and it was wonderful.

Brian Lehrer: Aww, that's great. Thank you, Beth. Go Yankees. I remember, yes. I think Didi Gregorius had a walk-off home run in that game.

Beth: It was a great day, and the Yankees won. Yes, it was a crazy game.

Brian Lehrer: Beth, thank you very much. Joe in East Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joe.

Joe: Hi. I saw the opera Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five at DePaul University in Chicago put on in 2001. I was with my friend. We were students at DePaul, already had our tickets in the ticket line waiting to pick them up, and a man from a group behind us asked if we wanted a ticket. We didn't need one, so we kindly turned him down. I didn't realize until the end of the production that the man who had offered us a ticket was Philip Glass. It was his opera.

I've always kept that as a very cool, generous act by him. To say I liked him very much, I played his piano music as a teenager, but I didn't know what he looked like at that time.

Brian Lehrer: Funny, because I have kind of a related story. I went to a Philip Glass concert at Carnegie Hall, and I saw that Paul Simon was sitting right across the aisle from me. Of course, I get to meet so many people in the course of my job, but I'd never met Paul Simon. I'm a big fan. Right at that time, as it turned out, I had seen Paul Simon in concert at BAM one week earlier, and my kid was learning a Paul Simon song on the piano. I couldn't resist.

Joe: Oh, wow.

Brian Lehrer: I leaned over, I said-- I didn't introduce myself as, "Maybe you know my radio show." I was just the guy, and I said, "Just wanted to say, big fan. Saw you last week at BAM. You were great. My 10-year-old is learning one of your songs on the piano right now." He was courteous. He was a little cool. I think he didn't love being interrupted, and I get it, but definitely courteous. There's that moment. Even for me, who gets to meet all these people because of my job. "Oh my God, it's that person. Should I go up to him, or should I just leave him alone?"

Joe: [chuckles] Had I known, I would have said about the same thing to Philip Glass. I just didn't know at the time.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Joe, thank you very much. Oh, here's an older musician story. Kevin in Bridgeport, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kevin.

Kevin: Hi, Brian. Yes, I'm fortunate my dad was in the music business, [unintelligible 00:10:33], so I was-- He actually called you once about Tower Records when they were closing Downtown. I was able to-- He worked with a lot of famous people, so that was great since I love music. I met George Harrison when he played at the Garden. I think it was in '74, maybe. There was an after-party, and I was standing in line. My dad went in, and I got stuck in this crush of people trying to go in. I looked up and there was John Lennon and May Pang.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet them, but I did get to meet George. He was really gracious and really lovely. Being a musician and playing in the city all the time, there were other instances standing out in front of The Bitter End, handing out passes, trying to get people to come in to see our show on a Monday night, Geena Davis walked by and I said, "Geena?" She turned and I handed her-- I said, "Come on in. The show's great." She was very nice and gracious about that. Also, Elvis Costello was an amazing-- very generous with his time, very conversant, very lovely person. I haven't [unintelligible 00:11:42] [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Did Geena Davis actually go into the building and see your show or she was just nice?

[laughter]

Kevin: No, she did not. She was just nice.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin, I'm going to leave it there to get some other folks on. Thank you. Good stories. Oh, David in Manhattan is going to go further back yet, I think. David, you're on WNYC. Hello.

David: Hi. When I was a young man, I wrote the only fan letter to the only woman who I thought deserved it, and that was Katharine Hepburn. At the time, I was building furniture, and she wrote back. I had sent her pictures of some tables I had built, and she said, "I'll take two." She invited me over for coffee to talk about it, and I built her the furniture, and we became friends the last eleven years of her life.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Based on your encounter making furniture.

David: Yes. She was the most generous. One of my biggest regret was when I finished delivering the furniture to her and she pulled out her checkbook and said, "How much do I owe you?" and I said, "Miss Hepburn, it doesn't matter what you write on that check. I will never cash it. I will frame it and put it in my workshop." She said, "Don't make this difficult for me. What do you want in return?" She offered me one of her paintings, which I foolishly turned down, which was later sold at Sotheby's after she died for $50,000. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Wow. David, thank you. Another great story. A listener texts-- Let's see. I think we'll have time for one more text, one more call. A listener writes-- and I think these are going to wind up being of a piece. Listener writes, "I taught one of the members of Duran Duran's son when I taught in New York City public schools. I love Duran Duran. You should have seen me at parent-teacher conferences basically dead. Lol. It was awesome." Robert in Scotch Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, Robert.

Robert: Hi. How you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. So you met?

Robert: Yes, so I met-- I'm about 20 years old, and I'm obsessed with politics. My idol, ever since I was 12 years old, is Bernie Sanders. Last summer, I was working as an intern in DC for Cory Booker, and I was in the-- Anybody who's ever worked there knows that in the basement of the buildings they have cafeterias. I was in line in the cafeteria, and who do I see but Senator Sanders? I drop my chicken fingers and I go over to him and I say, "Hey, I'm a huge fan, yada, yada, yada. Thank you for all the work you do." He just shakes my hand and walks away.

The next day, I was getting on the elevator going up after lunch, and who's next to me but Bernie Sanders again? I happen to get on the same elevator as him, and it's just me, him and his-- They're all like body men or women. The other woman gets off, so it's just me and him and his body man, and there's a solid 45 seconds where I'm like, "I'm alone in an elevator with Bernie Sanders."

Brian Lehrer: And you couldn't-

Robert: "What am I going to do?"

Brian Lehrer: -find the courage to say anything.

Robert: I could not say-- No, I looked at him [unintelligible 00:15:03] [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: That's going to have to be the last word. You and the parent from the PTA with Duran Duran's son, a member of Duran Duran's son, couldn't find the courage to talk to him. Thanks for your calls on meeting celebrities.

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