Slumbering but awakened.

Utter disgrace, that’s what I am. I pontificate about a love for writing and what do, I don’t write. Right? Well I am about to right my wrong, big time. The truth is there is an excuse,’cept I don’t like excuses so go ahead, berate me for all I’m worth.

Ok I will tell you if you must ask, better still I’ll let John Lennon tell you because you’re more likely to listen to him. ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’ I don’t think I’m alone either. What happened to the world? It was a lot cooler to me growing up, so many people around me doing well and us all inspiring one another. Fire in the blood and  a passion in the soul, although it does help when you get rewarded for your talents. Today  so many people are working for next to nothing, budgets are decreasing daily and they are torn between passing on a project because it doesn’t pay against the risk someone might not come back to them when they have the money to spend. It positively sucks because all the time your overhead stays the same, you have to eat and you have to pay the electric bill.

For me I needed to take stock, to stop, look around and re evaluate everything. I went back to the evaluation committee (me) and made a conscious decision, it wasn’t working so time for a change. I had no one to blame, only myself so cure was more the likely. Getting older I might be but lack of energy and enthusiasm, forget it! I’m as fired up as I ever was. I’m a great believer in everything for a reason, people come in to your life at a time and it’s always more than pure chance. In fact it’s pure bliss and delightful to work with like minded people who all share the same belief. There’s a passion and a commitment and even more than that a determination to make it work. The older you get the more you have to look back on and the easier it is, or should be to work out what it is that you have. What you’re good at and what you have learned along the way. I learned a lot, damn it I wrote a book about what I learned. Maybe I should have read it before I told others! It’s amazing , I’m writing about the mistakes U2 made, the opportunities that came Simon Cowell’s way, David Bowie and Innovation and I’ve become every character in the book. Who needs case studies, lessons learned from Rock and Roll indeed.

And so cometh the time, cometh the man. I bring you the real me, older , wiser and a damn sight more ready to rip. Enjoy the ride, I most certainly will.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Business Lessons, mistakes, View from the room, Journey Through The Past, tony michaelides

X Factor and Mr Cowell.

It seems that while American Idol is touting every name under the sun as their new judge  Mr Cowells’ new baby , X  Factor is gathering up some unfavorable press in it’s homeland, the UK . Maybe the backlash is imminent and Britain is doing as Britain does,  builds ’em up to knock ’em down. As X Factor preps for it’s US debut it is now several seasons old in the UK and although he would never admit it there must be some nerves over the anticipated launch. Let’s face it Simon has set himself up where he has to live up to his own previous achievements. Mind you I’d suffer the stress for it’s rewards, I suppose.

So will the media be poised with knives at the ready to carve in to the chosen one? Nah I’m just speculating now with the rest. You see the thing is that Simon plays the game like a master, he knows exactly how to have the media love him. He has seen it from both sides and he’s smart enough to know that without them he has no job and subsequently no lifestyle. He would never let that happen after stumbling a few times on the way. When you wait that long to get something as big as this you’re smarter than the rest of the pack. It would be very hard for Simon Cowell to slip let alone fall.

When you look at the PR machine in play I bet Tiger Woods wished he had Cowell doing his image protection. I still look at that whole fiasco as the worse PR job I have ever seen. The boy with everything just allowed his people to sit back and do nothing. I blame all of them, why one didn’t step up to the table and confront the other and politely ask, ‘er should we be not getting a little busier round here? ‘ is beyond me. We live in  the age of image and if the public perceives you as something then you better make sure you live up to what they expect of you.  And family men do not play around with families other than their own, I wouldn’t have thought that anyone need tell him that. But of course Tiger is invincible so he thinks he can do as he wishes. Go away now, we’ve had enough of you. Tiger could so Tiger would.? Not anymore as he desperately clings on to his declining fortune. I wonder if he remembers life before his millions?

agree with. That should piss them of and giver them nothing to write about. Remember media and how to handle it? Tiger Woods, disaster, David Lettereman the opposite. When Letterman was accused of having affairs with female he came out and admitted it. When Tiger was over Tigering himself he thought he was invincible and his world came crumbling along with any ounce of credibility. Now he’s 50% less of whatever iron it is golfers pull out on this part of the course.

We’ve been Tigerless on this blog for months but I have to say everything I predicted  (although predicting was hardly difficult) on here jumped up to bite his Tiger bottom. And it’s been around to haunt him for over 8 months. And it will forever be there becasue of how he behaved. I don’t understand golf but you need to stick the ball in the hole and win your games, I know that much. Seems he wasn’t the golfer he was so now without that going for you how long will it ( you) last. If you’re not winning then you’re a loser.

Filed under: mistakes, TV, TV hosts, View from the room, american idol, Simon Cowell, Tiger Woods, X Factor

Let’s go Ga Ga

The one thing that keeps us rockers rolling is belief.  We grew up believing in the dream and hard as the industry has worked at screwing it all up  we still hold on to that belief. We love Ga GA, we have to love Ga Ga because she rubs their dirty faces in it and shows us that IF you put something out there that the public actually want, make it sexy and make it relevant then guess what, they’ll go buy it.

Lady Ga Ga didn’t need a record company. In fact the man with the golden touch Antonio ‘LA’ Reid signed her and dropped her in three months, yep the man who signed Pink, Maria Carey, Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, TLC, Usher, Outkast and Dido and took them all to multi-platinum status missed out on Ga Ga. How the hell did that happen? It makes you wonder that if she’d have had that clout behind her then what might she have achieved? It’s a shame she’s only managed to sell 15 million albums and 40 million singles in just over two years…

Now we can’t dismiss Jimmy Iovine and the Interscope crew entirely, I suppose they must have done something but when we live in the age of the artist doing all the work I think she kind of surpassed that.  Lady Ga Ga kind of surpasses everything. She’s dragged the average Joe (and Josephine) off the street and in to anywhere that’s still open and selling records. She sent them to their computer, to borrow someone else’s computer and she has got the whole house jumping again. Listen record industry and listen good, if you can get your grubby hands on something that excites people they will buy it.

Let’s go Ga Ga, it’s a good place to be right now. She kicked the industry right where it hurt. While they ‘assumed ‘they knew what we wanted they weren’t even close. Did they really think the public was this stupid? We’ll tell them what they need to like and send them out to buy it, right? No I don’t think so Mr Record company, sadly you got it so wrong. You pushed people away. you made them realize they don’t need music after all. The jury’s out, why the hell did you do that?

Take me Ga Ga I’m yours. I’m not even your target market but I love you. That’s it though isn’t it, the real pop star has no target market they appeal to the masses. Remember Michael Jackson? He targeted the market, every damn one of them. A fan base of everyone who had a wallet, a song and dance man on a mission. An entertainer and a very good one at that and someone who the music industry should have gone back and studied. But that would be admitting they made a mistake and they don’t make mistakes do they?

Filed under: mistakes, record companies, View from the room, jimmy iovine, Lady Ga Ga, Michael Jackson, music industry, record companies

Sex and the Celebrity

If you’ve been striving to be a successful artist or maybe an actor for most of your life and you’re finally looking at maybe getting there then beware, the chick parade is out to get you. Seems there is a growing tendency for some of the fairer sex to find there’s some very easy game to prey upon. The British tabloids will thinking nothing of dropping 40 to 150k on some femme fatale’s lap for a story about how they their baby boy(friend) hung from the chandeliers with a lit beacon dangling out of his ass while reciting the Ten Commandments, clad in a balaclava and a  soiled diaper. And just think, years of working hard to get to this, the kind of exposure they hadn’t quite planned on.

It seems fair game too for the less than fairer sex who claim bragging rights if just one shameless bimbo claims he was the finest shag on earth. He can walk proudly and claim his Crown of Studdery. Who cares what gets said to his mum in the grocery store, HE DA MAAAN!

Such is the depraved media whored world we live in that everyone wants to know the seedy bits. And just think, for a poor starving would be model who isn’t going very far ( because she’s shit and the implants have turned her in to a cartoon character) it’s either the stripper pole or a complete  no brainer and pretend sex with a celeb. How easy is that? Chat a star up, flirt outrageously with him all evening rubbing up to him in whatever it is you rub up in and as the evening progresses he’ll feel like a million dollars. Just as well because it’ll probably cost him that once she’s shuffled out of the sack and in to the loo to send pictures off to the hungry tabloid from the I Phone that the last dickhead paid for.

In fact he might be so pissed by chica time that he either can’t perform or just be fast asleep. He won’t remember anything. She might have even switched roles with the overnight cleaner who doesn’t speak a word of English and thinks she’s been offered overtime cleaning up the mess….him. Just think he could have still had a big daft grin on his face from a couple of bottles of Champagne but he went for the babe and the career termination. So so much more expensive. Tut tut.

Is it worth it? Well clearly most males think so because they seem entrapped, adult entrapped in fact. Their fragile ego’s being unable to just say no. How could they avoid a gorgeous predatory vixen who is ‘so up for it,’ after all they are a star and so hot. Just those pouting lips and the ‘Baby I love you, baby I need you. Baby I have got you hook line and sinker.’ And Baby you just made myday without me even giving you your night.

And is there an end in sight? Maybe only his rear one.

Filed under: mistakes, british tabloids, celebrity sex, models

Sid and Malc

Management and the style of management can vary so much. Good managers always act in the best interests of the artist and that requires a huge understanding of what it is you want to get out of them. That doesn’t mean always agreeing with them, on the contrary sometimes that means vehemently disagreeing with them and getting them to shape up. At the top level you’re protecting them from the record company and if you’re lower down the pecking order you’re often having to protect them from themselves.

The classic example here would be Malcolm McLaren and a quarter of his act, Sid Vicious. Just the other day I was, together with many others praising McLaren and what he had achieved in his years and I still stand by that. He played a large part in a small part of musical history, the revolutionary part which is always the exciting bit. McLaren’s relentless pursuit was always about the end product, The Sex Pistols and in doing that he was almost encouraging Sid to spiral out of control. It worked in the general scheme of things, he wanted the Pistols to be a train wreck and whatever carnage had to happen then so be it. It all added to the end product and the media frenzy.

Sid was that rollercoaster of a train wreck, his whole tragic world in turmoil and too brain dead to ever be bothered. And while it all fell apart underneath him he paid the ultimate price, he’s not here anymore. The whole Sid and Nancy tragic opera was played out to it’s inevitable conclusion and alongside  John Lydon we remember Sid more than the others and for just that. the messed up smack head that he was. We love tragedy in rock, Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Janis and Brian Jones, not to mention Kurt Cobain and Elvis Presley. It’s hard being a legend while you’re alive.

McLaren, cruel as it sounds almost encouraged Sid and left him too it. Whatever Sid got up to was front page news and that was what  always worked in the bigger picture. It was front page news from the start of his heroin addiction and his behavior right through to Nancy’s death. And the ultimate swanson, his own death where he was Romeo to his Juliete.

You wonder if Malcolm felt any remorse deep down inside because he never showed it. Did he think it was worth sacrificing a human life, maybe two in the quest for publicity? Is a life that important, somehow I doubt it. And yet if it wasn’t for the end who would remember Sid? He was a punk star because of all that, no more significant than the other three yet there he lies in rock’s tragic corner. Famous for careering out of control.

Filed under: management, mistakes, View from the room, John Lydon, Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious, The Sex Pistols

Wooden Woods

There’s a rumble in the jungle, Tiger’s back. Either on his back or on top we are going to have to watch his slimy orchestrated moves all over Breakfast, night time and in between time TV, radio, press. Bring on the clowns. Didn’t you just love the orchestrated glum press photo opportunity, the PR people saying ‘Look glum, everyone will use the picture, wear Nike and pass me a zero from you’re bank account. Just do it, Nike will love it and it’ll end up costing you nothing.’ You don’t even need to be cynical to watch this calculated charade play out. Soft press conference and now the soft tournament, the one he’s bound to win and the one where he knows he’ll be adored. Nothing like challenging yourself eh? Perish the thought anyone should berate him. Bring on mum, pat him on his head. Make sure he’s wearing ‘The cap.

Sucks, keep your shoes and hats Nike I’m sticking to my balaclava and flip flip flops. I think you deserve each other and for what it’s worth I have other hats I can wear. I was so mad I went to throw all my golf clubs out, forgetting I’ve never played a game of golf in my life. Not my chosen sport, can’t see the point of playing anything you don’t have to get changed for. Unless you include some ludicrous patterned jumpers and silly shoes.

I have to confess though all the fever pitch excitement I’m here to say my peace, piece. PISS. I even scrapped the idea of another blog once I saw the TV coverage, what a lame ass.I am. Aaaaaargh didn’t it make you want to puke how they slunk out from the foliage, the distance between them picture perfect.  I don’t even like Elfin now or whatever her name is, get back in the bushes where you belong. Cartoon characters in a cartoon world. Camouflage life.

So he’s on his way back and I, like everyone else responded. Hell his actions from the outset must now be costing him a pretty penny, no wonder the Nike caps came out. You can see the baying PR wolves rubbing their paws and howling, ‘Well Tiger if you had got us involved from the start we could have taken care of this but now there’s a lot more image to rebuild. It’s going to take a lot of time, the six month retainer is going to have to be twenty five years. ‘Isn’t this another case of the public loving the hard luck story. What hard luck story are we exactly talking about here? Who was responsible for taking this billionaire’s pants down? Who will go down in history…..All the endless temptations towards the puns, some reference to his exploits being the under dog. It’s strange because before all this Tiger Woods to me was just a bloke with a golf club with a silly name, birdie, nine iron, whatever and the same cap. Nondescript, lacking in personality and someone who appeared to have more money than all the countries I’ve visited. He now strikes me as the most robotic celebrity I have ever seen either up close and personal or from a distance, and the nature of my job I feel qualifies me to voice an opinion.

We’re back to that word ‘celebrity.’ Tiger has identified more than anyone where celebrity went wrong, from charismatic like Jack Nicholson to ‘celebrity’ like er, Tiger Woods. Does he even have a Godamn name or did he slip out of the womb and it was a quick call from parentage.’ Mmm not sure, let’s call him after an animal.’ But Tiger? Tiger’s are sleek, charismatic, powerful (OK you might say money gives him power but personally I never had a problem with a real tiger who didn’t carry a black Amex card) The thing is tiger’s are everything he isn’t, he has less charisma than tiger droppings. If his family are reading this please get in touch, in fact don’t I saw his insipid mother groveling at the press conference and the wife elf who took her wedding ring off. Shock horror, who would have expected that. His mistresses each get to wear it for one week until the end of the year. It’s  due back the first of January, Happy New Year.

I”M DONE, with Tiger Wooden I have things to do and it isn’t waitresses. Well for now anyway. If you’re here for the first time welcome to my blog. If you enjoyed it my name’s Tony Michaelides and if you didn’t my name is Rhino Michaelides and I’m horny.

Filed under: mistakes, Uncategorized, View from the room, celebrity, PR, Tiger Woods

Diva meltdown

Oh damn I was right all along, Whitney Houston is shit. Seems like her only redeeming feature, her voice let her down in Australia big time. The audiences started walking out (I hope with a refund) because the old battle axe was shite . It is reported from some reliable sources, including You Tube footage showing her taking time outs to gather her composure  before attempting to hit the notes. What the f….Oi, did you hear me last time, GO AWAY, leave us alone , you’re a has been . We are deserving of a Whitney free zone. You did very nicely indeed and now it’s our turn, give us all a break, you have become a laughing stock. How the hell, and who the hell do you think you are  that as a performer you can stop mid song and take a gulp of water or whatever it was and then return to the song that you already ended? When it stops love, it’s over.

What in the world compels her to keep trying to sustain a career that went years ago? Surely it’s not the money and why would you want your precious little reputation tarnished?  It all sucks, especially when you read what her publicist says to defend her. ‘The audience loved her, there were 8.000 in Brisbane and 12,000 in Sydney. There were more at Pearl Harbor and that didn’t make it  a good night. Yes Whitters they turned up but they started to leave.  Any clues there Mr Publicist? It means you’re either not having a good time or possibly they all left to catch the last bus home?

As long as she trawls her scrawny ass out I’m watching her. And everything I hear from everywhere, except Clive boy says you suck. What I don’t understand is that someone with Clive Davis’ ego should want to see this woman continue. Even though I can’t stand him nowadays there was a period when Clive Davis was a mover and a shaker in the music business and now he puts his reputation to the test so that me and many others look at him and think, he’s lost the plot.

The underlying truth here is that this is a business where some people just can’t let go. Where others are successful and slowly slip away for whatever reason, others just can’t do that. Whitney Houston just cannot accept that like most things in the entertainment industry there is a shelf like and you’ve had it. You’ve become very shelfish.

Filed under: mistakes, View from the room, Clive Davis, Divas, Whitney Houston

Another Brit in the wall

The Brits. that much lauded, much laughed at awards ceremony celebrating what’s best in British music. But has it really ever done that? Those who think they know put together a list of nominees, spread them around the labels they work for and then troll along to the event knowing that their expenses will get signed off,  because they sign them. When they start off there is speculation, will they get it right and then as each year goes by your expectations become less and less. Until you expect nothing and you’re satisfied. . Next year I vow to not even comment, though I might have said that last year. I only watched for curiosities sake and Lady Ga Ga who by a mark of respect for Alexander McQueen was very low key on the night.

I’m just glad they haven’t come up with a ‘Lifetime Whinger’ award for Whitney Houston or ‘The Lifetime Ego’ award for Clive Davis. In fact it would need to be  ‘The Clive Davis Award’ so Clive can come up on stage to present it to himself every year, and then when he pops it Whitney can come up and accept it posthumously on his behalf and tell us how he will always be missed. ‘I will always love me.’ Clive’s cover version of Whitney’s cover of Dolly’s song. (Parton the pun.)

The funny thing is I didn’t see the whole of The Brits but I saw enough on You Tube and read various reports all saying the same thing as it’s said every year. It is what it is, but does is what it is make it what it should be? The problem is we don’t have anything to celebrate now, no one’s buying records so the only way they can get anyone to watch a show is to put the only artists on who sell anything. So then we are left with a show to showcase the artists who’s records we have already bought.

You’d be tempted to call the proceedings ‘safe’ if it wasn’t for the predictable controversy of ‘anarchy.’ We’d had the water thrown over John Prescott outrage. We’ve had the Michael Jackson carry on from Jarvis Cocker. We’ve had the Sam Fox, Mick Fleetwood great presenters of our time show. We’ve had the lot but they always manage to find something that will make it to the papers. But didn’t you expect it the moment Liam Gallagher stepped up on the stage, that sweet aroma of predictability where he wants to grow old disgracefully and The Brits is the place to do it. I saw him swagger up and I was going ‘Go on Liam do something outrageous, be respectful and say what a fantastic ride Oasis had been.’ Thank others for allowing you your own bit of the limelight but no he did the most obvious thing possible. He was Liam twenty years on.

He wasn’t there to celebrate anything, he just thought he needed a bit of attention and he knew the media would lap it up. But now when you’ve been and gone wouldn’t it have been more outrageous then to do something not outrageous? People would have given him a rousing reception but he’d rather take the swipes, it’s mens work. How utterly ludicrous to thank his band apart from the one person who allowed their very existence. Why would we have ever wanted another swaggering monkey when we still had the King Monkey himself, Ian Brown?  And let’s face it Ian Brown has always been and still is cooler than Liam Gallagher. Sorry Liam you worked well in the band as a front man but all the tired tactics? It’s no longer relevant.

Maybe you should have kissed Robbie Williams live at The Brits. Damn, I’ve given them an idea for next year. it if not for whom it wouldn’t have been much of a band.

Filed under: mistakes, Opportunity, record companies, View from the room, Ian Brown, Lady Ga Ga, Liam Gallagher, The Brits, You Tube channel

John Terry is a weathered man.

Another day another self obsessed ‘role model’ taken to the cleaners by the media. This time our very own England soccer team captain, John Terry. Great preparation for the World Cup Tel, no sooner than he was voted dad of the year he’s off trying to prove it. More like dog of the year. You’ve done us proud as a nation, you better hope England win the World Cup because boy are you going to wonder what hit you.  And with a baying crowd it sure as hell won’t a dominatrix who’s giving you a giving you a spanking. No summer holiday for you sunshine.

This guy is totally delusional at the thought of his own invincibility, his entire life is spent sorting deals out to bring him even more dosh and now in the style of Tiger he’s looking like his life is over. His life of course being his wallet, he doesn’t seem to care too much about his wife and family and just hopes one day he’ll get the captaincy back. Mmm, dream on, to not even think he would be sacked?  What was he thinking that he didn’t even have the suss to resign? Oh I think that’s called dignity and bowing down, something you don’t do when you’re the captain of England, or at least in his eyes. After all everyone else are lesser mortals. Arrogant or what?

And slavering over your former team mate’s missus is pretty low especially when he thought you were his mate. In fact his wife was your mate really wasn’t she? Biblically you proved that.  I bet the rest of the team hire a bus to follow him home after training now. He has to be getting a few odd stares from them now as the full extent of his philandering has been revealed.

And all he seems worried about is that the publicity will hamper his earnings. Damn right it will and he deserves all he’s got coming. Just like Tiger thought he’d be OK, he wasn’t and now who would want to attach their name to a shamed ex England captain who’d lost his job cos of his knob? This guy takes the biscuit for sheer unadulterated greed as he has abused his position as our national team captain to just line his pockets with as much money as possible. He really is despicable and pretty dumb too if you ask me to think he would get away with it. It’s a wonder he has the time to play football, maybe if they drop him he can pull his wages still and go around doing more deals. I can just see him rubbing his hands at the prospect, ‘Durgh I never thought of that’.

I think his arrogance has made the News of the World dig their teeth in even deeper, they aren’t going to let go by any stretch of the imagination. Let’s see how this affects his form because I’m sure there’s going to be a few sleepless nights when he comes to terms with the hurt he will feel, not for his wife but for his wallet. Sponsors will line up to be first out of the door.

What is it that we now create such self obssesed monsters.They get paid so much money and all they want is more, more, more. Whether it’s the boy who didn’t quite make it to Harvard, Carlos Tevez, Tiger ‘Shagnasty’ Woods or anyone else you care to mention there seems to be a pattern. They really do believe they have the right to do what they want and behave whatever way they see fit. And seeing fit nowadays is proving you are positively unfit to be the role model you pretend you are. “Role model?’ More like a roll in the sack with a model.

And then they think that the media should respect their privacy? They seem to be unable to realize that they forfeit that privacy when you display affections for some teammates wife. No one was following him on holiday with his family or hounding the kids by taking pictures, no they respected that as private but behaving badly is public domain.

Each week I think the press is going to be after another one now, though I have to admit trapping Terry is a gem of a find and will take some beating. They need to find an aging international who’s had unprotected sex with a farm animal and given birth to a flock of wayward geese.

In an age when the print media is suffering the News of the World are clever enough to realise nothing sells copy like a story like this embalzoned on their front page. It just looks a bigger scoop and much more scandalous when it’s glaring off a newstand than on your computer screen. And now they have their teeth in people will keep coming back for more. He’s become a laughing stock although he’s too cocky to probably realize it, just look at what happened to poor old David Beckham when he ineffectually stuck out a boot and tripped some Latino knobhead up in the World Cup. He was hounded from ground to ground week after week, vilified and still he rose above it all to become a better footballer and person. He handled it well because he’s a better equipped celeb than Terry. There’s the rub.

Because John Terry wears shorts and kicks a ball doesn’t make him a real celebrity, it makes him famous. But axe murderers are famous too aren’t they?  More like notorious if you want my opinion. You don’t, to hell with you you’re getting it anyway, no real celebs step up to the table and admit when they’ve done wrong, they don’t run around and try to instigate a cover up when they’ve been found out. This isn’t Watergate, skip. Sorry I mean ex skip.

I hope they impeach him and that Portuguese team conquering slapper disappears up her own publicity with all her melons.

Filed under: mistakes, View from the room, England football team, England soccer team, John Terry, World cup

Tiger would?

As the cult of celebrity thickens, it’s fast becoming an epidemic. I’m sitting in Orlando just down the road from the once squeeky clean Tiger Woods who’s now looking like he was a tiger after all. He only ever popped out for a round of golf but now he’s got to be feeling a little caged in with the world’s media camped outside his Isleworth estate.

And now we discover he’s had more than one illicit affair. Each day we have another ‘Woodette’ stepping in to the media circus. Apparently the girl who originally had denied any wrong doing might admit to doing right by admitting to doing wrong. Could it have something to do with the other scarlet woman having just landed $150,000 from US weekly.? Maybe I could convince someone I was his love child and land a pay check? Er, maybe not…

While his Escalade  needs an extreme makeover somewhere to the tune of $8,000 he seemed to think his image would remain untarnished. His check book can more than cover the cost of the vehicular damage yet I can’t help wondering why his millions weren’t better spent protecting his image. We have actual persons deployed nowadays as image consultants and why he didn’t find the best we’ll never know. Did he really expect that by keeping quite this would go away. Yes you Mr Woods billionaire and most rewarded sports star on earth. This was NEVER going to go away and now when a simple ‘I fucked up’ statement to all and sundry might have sufficed it’s a big time headache. All the vultures are out and it looks like they are baying for blood. His sponsors were quoted as saying they didn’t have a problem with this but now as each day goes by they must be wondering that this is bad publicity. I’m looking at it and wondering how much could one man possibly lose in one week. Never mind the sponsors what about the missus?  He’s already apparently ‘renegotiating’ the pre nup. Is that a prenupshutmeup  to stop her selling her side of things to the press? And  what could that be worth! Then there’s the publishing advance from hell. Here fill in whatever you want, just give us the meat and bones

I firmly believe in this day and age of people making fortunes out of celebrity fuck ups he should have found one image consultant supremo and slapped an open check on their desk and say, ‘Get me out of this, whatever it costs, just get me out of this.’ Money well spent and money very well saved.

Let’s be honest a man knowing what he’d done and with unlimited funds to employ the best would have someone come round, cut a check and say, ‘Make this go away.’ For a guy who seemed to have it all and the type of brand sponsors fall over you would expect he would have made a better job of all this. Where are his advisers, he must have them? If not …Tiger I’m here, I’d have done it for you!

Even though his sponsors are saying they are sticking by him, how long can all this bad publicity realistically be tolerated? I feel particularly sorry for one of his sponsors, Nike who’s slogan is ‘Just do it.’ A TV ad with Tiger Woods on…….and a tag line that fires across the screen saying ‘Just do it?’ I think there might be some people sat behind closed doors rethinking their marketing plan or at least who their marketing plan should involve. Here is a brand that can, after all attract the creme de la creme from the sporting world and there are a good few few celebrity sports people that are far less maintenance. And you have thought a golfer would have been so much ‘safer’ than a football or baseball player. Maybe not..

There is plenty more to come from this story. Tiger, Tiger’s burning bright but for now I’ve gone.

Filed under: mistakes, PR, View from the room, Nike, sponsorship deals, sports stars, Tiger Woods