(Oscar winner & conspiracy theorist Jon Voight warmly embraces unapologetic fascist & future inmate, Donald Trump. Photo credit: Getty Images)
I hate being late. Absolutely hate it.
I get all anxious and panicky and whatnot. But had I not gotten to the 2006 Indy 500 just before the green flag instead of much earlier as planned, I’d have missed a celebrity showing his best side.
The vast majority of my interactions with famous people come from my work in motorsports. For 20 years or so, I’ve been involved in most forms of racing, such as stock car, drag racing, dirt track racing, IndyCar, off-road, drifting, and the like, as a public relations rep or a media member. At races like the 500, there are TONS of celebrities and they run the gamut of fame level & relevance.
I was supposed to be in the media center a couple hours before the race started. I wanted to get there a little early to get set up, talk to some friends, and walk around the pits. This process was ruined when I wasn’t able to make the right turn into the infield tunnel because I got maneuvered into the wrong lane. My only option was to drive all the way around the track and try again.
But here’s the thing: even in a bad year, the race draws north of 100,000 people and most of them were right in front of me . It took two hours to get back where I needed to be. Sadly, I wasn’t the vision of calm I am today.
(This, sans the bowtie.)
During the 120 minutes I was trapped in Race Day traffic, I got a call from a co-worker, asking me to pick up some credentials from the main office. I managed to get there before the start of the race & since it was so close to green flag, the lines were almost empty. Just me, some guy in a suit…and Jon Voight.
I recognized him, obviously, but I didn’t say anything because there was a helluva scene playing out in front of me. Before I get there, let me backtrack a touch.
The specific date of the race was May 26, 2006. Over the course of that day in Western Africa, fellow Oscar winner Angelina Jolie was giving birth to her first child with non-Oscar winner but gorgeous human, Brad Pitt.
Oh, and Voight is Angelina’s dad. Left that out.
(Father & daughter in happier times. Photo credit: Lester Cohen/WireImage)
To set the scene, I’m standing behind a man whose daughter is about to give birth to his grandchild a world away while the press is hammering the fact that he & his daughter were on the outs. He didn’t look stoked to be there.
The guy in the suit had something to say, though. Apparently, he was Voight’s handler and he was borrowing a LOT of cache from his charge. As happens on Race Day at any track, but especially the 500, shit gets mixed up at credentials. It happens.
Suit Boy, however, wasn’t having it.
“Do you know who this is?! This is Jon Voight and he’s a very important man!”
I will swear on the lives of my granddaughters the words “he’s a very important man” left this clown’s mouth & you could tell he believed it. The credential staff, having worked with literally hundreds of millionaires over the preceding month, were suitably impressed.
There was more to it, but you get the drift. Now to be fair, Voight, who once called for the "highest prayers” for former president & all-around shitbrick Donald Trump during his first impeachment, didn’t say a word. But to stand there & let his toadie yell at the women behind the counter, who had been working their asses since well before dawn, says a ton.
Fun fact: Trump was supposed to drive the pace car for the 2011 Indy 500, which I also covered, but he canceled late. Why? To focus on his run for president. In 2012. As a Democrat. I thought it was weird that he would turn down free press in front of global media at the most famous race on the planet. Now I know he’s just a fucking moron.
To summarize, when the co-star of The Deer Hunter turned out to be a right-wing troll, I wasn’t surprised. If that’s how you treat people, of course you’re a Republican. Or whatever the hell those people have morphed into.
🤣 Thanks for the morning laugh!
Voight is a piece of work. I tried to say hello to him in New York years ago and he took my arm and bit it.