David Gest in pill-popping mystery riddle
David Gest has died and he’s all over the tabloids. The Mail invites its readers to pull up an armchair and look for clues. It is “The mystery death Liza Minnelli’s ex in London hotel”.
Yep, poor old Dave doesn’t even get name-checked in his final moment in the light. The Mail‘s mystery seems to finding out who he was. Over page 6 and 7 Gest is “Michael jackson’s friend”. The “62-year-old entertainer” (Express) is notable for being “Mr Minnelli”, which he was, albeit for just 16 months of his existence.
Sticking with the Express we learn that the “reality TV star” (I’m a Celebrity…, Celebrity Big Brother, Celebrity Window Shopping (call me ITV2, I have ideas)) died in a “riddle”. Only it isn’t one because police say there are no suspicious circumstance.
On page 19, Virginia Blackburn says Gest was “one half of one of the oddest odd couples”. Indeed. His marriage to Minnelli was odd, not least of all because it gave us the most bizarre showbiz photos of all time: the one in which Gest, Liza, Michael Jackson and Liz Taylor appear to be melting.
“Gest in peace,” says the Sun. “Friends say he died naturally”. So much for mysteries and riddles, then – unless the Express and Mail see Gest’s passing as the chance to debate the meaning of life?
But hold on a moment – the Mirror smells scandal and leads with news of Gest’s “sleeping pill torment”. In “Gest Pills Hell” – how tasteful of the Mirror to invoke Satan’s afterlife den in the tale of a man’s demise – we hear of “friends” saying Gest was “strung out” on pills.
And then this: “The star had been planning a UK tour called David Gest is not Dead Alive with Soul.” That title was based on a moment in the Big Brother house when the announcement to housemate Angie Bowie that David Bowie was dead became truncated to ‘David is dead’. Gest was ill at the time in one of the celebrity silo’s beds. Housemate Tiffany Pollard thought Gest was the dead David. Cue much shocked faces and hand fanning.
And now David Gest really is dead. Or ‘resting’ as fellow CBB housemates call it…
Posted: 13th, April 2016 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
