David Blaine suspended upside down. He takes a break every hour to stand on a platform and often puts his head in a harness
Magician/Illusionist/Stupid-Stunt Man, David Blaine, is a fraud. I’m pretending to be stunned. Blaine is currently on the last day of his idea of a super-magic stunt, 60 hours hanging upside down in Central Park. The thing is, as pointless and uninteresting as the stunt would be even if it were actual, he isn’t even doing it. Blaine is spending 10 minutes of every hour standing upright on a crane platform.
“…ever since he started yesterday afternoon, we’ve been getting emails from bystanders saying that he wasn’t hanging upside down—instead, he was resting by standing on a platform, only to be hoisted up several minutes later.”
And they have photographic proof.
Hanging upside down is the the least interesting stunt I’ve ever heard of, but Blaine thinks it’s so profound he’s been doing interviews suspended by his feet since Monday and will have a big TV special Wednesday night on ABC, always making it appear that he has been that way the whole time. Maybe that’s the illusion, because there’s nothing else about this stunt that says “magic”.
Doctors told Blaine that hanging upside down for that long could possibly be fatal and likely could cause eye damage, leaving him blind. But Blaine has gone as far as pointing out something in a reporter’s teeth as she was interviewing him to “prove” his eyes were fine. Neither were decent enough actors to pull this off and the “something” was on the reporters side not facing the camera at any time. Nice. About as real as this whole stunt.
And of course his eyes are fine. David Blaine isn’t even completely hanging upside down for the 50 minutes he’s in the air. When not giving interviews or filming for his special, his head is actually being held up in a harness. As news of the faux stunt started hitting the internet, Blaine’s reps sent Gawker an email statement.
“Rubenstein Associates represents David Blaine and I personally have handled publicity for every one of his challenges. There has been no claim that David was going to hang upside down for 60 hours without a break. In all of his discussions with the media, he said he would have to occasionally get his head above his heart and lower his legs to correct circulation. About once every hour, David comes upright for about five minutes for a medical and equipment check. He has something to drink and he relieves himself, something even David can’t do upside down.
His doctors told him quite simply that if he didn’t correct blood flow, he could die.
David began the challenge at 8:34 am Monday and concludes at about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. That’s about 62 hours.
Stop by the Wollman Rink, especially Wednesday night, and enjoy the spectacle. It’s free.
And give the guy a break.”
Give the guy a break? He needs to give us a break from these cheesy stunts that just keep getting less and less interesting. If the magic in this is supposed to be danger or endurance, I say again, there is no magic here. And someone is paying this guy to do this.
Note by Celebitchy: I want to dislike this guy, but I came away with a lot of respect for him after he broke the world record for holding his breath underwater on Oprah. This is a dumb stunt sure, but he does have conviction and has pulled pretty amazing masochistic public acts in the past.
The two images below are courtesy of Gawker readers and were originally posted on Gawker, where they have even more photos of Blaine standing on that platform. Header image is of Blaine on 9/22/08. Credit: WENN.
Um so what IS the point of this? He hangs upside down for a bit, has a break… what exactly has he acheived then? Of course nobody can hang upside down for days on end with no breaks, but if he just hangs upside down and then takes breaks, what is the point of doing it? It’s not magic, it’s just dumb and pointless.
Who pays him to do this crap?
Furthermore, as a freelance journalist, I have spent about 6 hour in CP so far, watching David perform this stunt, and all of these articles about him taking 10 minute breaks aren’t accurate — his breaks are longer, I’ve witnessed them being as long as 25 minutes, and I’ve even seen him take his boots of while standing on that platform. I’m not one to jump on the bashing bandwagon, but I was pretty disappointed seeing this guy take break after break, especially such long breaks, and so that’s what I ended up reporting — disappointment.
ugh! so pointless. has he ever even completed a “stunt” that he as attempted….he’s so lame….
It’s brilliant (and sad) how far David’s fallen from his days as a brilliant magician.
watching kids hang from the monkeybars at the playground is way more entertaining than this guy. and the kids don’t have headstraps!
Speak for yourself, Kate. I never let my kids leave the house without their headstraps!
Whoops, sub “weird” for “brilliant” up there. 😕
He’s a toolbag.
I want to be paid for doing this, too. Plus, I’ll even do the “no sleep for x amount of days” one as well… Show me the money. 🙂
Well he would die if he did it for real – do people really want that?
This guy makes me mad. He’s not even doing magic tricks. He needs to rent the prestige or the illusionist to remind him of what he’s supposed to be doing. This “trick” if he really did it would be being a dare devil at best. There is no illusion.
CB – you should lose respect for him with the underwater trick because he said he was going to do it for x amount of time or die trying. He didn’t reach that time, and he’s still here.
ABC owes me one live death. I’ll gladly negotiate whose though…I’d trade David Blaine for Spencer Pratt.
Joe, no, we don’t want him to die. The point is that this non-stunt is not a stunt, not magic, not even entertaining.
Maybe if webbing came out his butt and he spun a web it might be cool, but simply hanging? I’d rather watch Rosie O’Donnel do Pilates.