"SHANNON! SHANNON! SHANNON!"
28.8.2011
I arrived into LA on the morning of the 28th... the day of the MTV VMA's.
After waiting for what seeemed like forever at immigration, I made my way to the hotel where I finally got to see the other Aussie Echelon girls. We spent the day looking around Hollywood before heading downtown to the Nokia Theatre to see the VMA's. Little did we know, they had already started at 4pm so we had missed the red carpet. DAMN!
We did hang around for a little while as we overheard someone say the show was close to being over.
As we were standing out the front of the theatre, a lady who'd been in the show walked past and handed her ticket to Kitty. She said "There's still 10 minutes left" I freaked out and told her to go but for some reason she stuck her hand out and gae me the ticket. I was like "are you serious?" I gave the girls my stuff and ran to the door. Security was all over me before I even got barely inside the door "Can I help you?" He said. I pulled out the ticket and he said "Oh Ok". They took the ticket to scan but since the scan area of the ticket had been ripped off, he said he couldn't let me in. DAMMIT! I was shaking just at the thought of going into the VMA's, let alone to have been sitting in the audience with famous people! Can you actually imagine if I had of gotten in?! Just sitting there amongst all the celebs. The thought of it actually makes me feel sick!!!
We decided to walk around the back to where the celebs would be leaving. After waiting for a while with nothing happening, some of the girls decided they wanted to start heading back home.
As we were walking back behind the theatre, we passed what was obviously going to be an afterparty venue. As we walked past I noticed someone walking the opposite direction who looked familiar and without even thinking I stopped dead and calmly said out loud "Oh My God. Pete Wentz." He looked at me and smiled as I stood there frozen with my jaw on the floor. I absolutely love Fall Out Boy so I looked over to the girls and said "You wanna go after him?" Bella said yes so she grabbed my hand and off we went.
We started following his entourage down the area we had just walked down and as we got to him, Bella said "Can we get a photo?" He kept walking but said "Walk with me..." As we walked beside him we approached the crowd of people who were waiting to see celebrities as they left. The paparazzi flashed a bunch of bright lights in our eyes as we walked past them and we were led down a VIP walk through area.
Pete had his arm around Bella the entire time as she was in the middle, and he put his arm out and around my shoulder as we were trying to walk and snap a photo at the same time. Consequently, the photos are so blurry that you can't even tell it's him, or us, but hey, it was still absolutely incredible!
We said goodbye to Pete as we got to the hotel entrance and we both turned to each other, screamed and hugged before heading back over to the crowd. We tried to go back the way we'd just come to get back to the other girls, but we were told we couldn't go through (because it was blocked off for the celebs leaving). We then heard screaming so went to the direction of the screams.... it was the cast from Jersey Shore (I have NO IDEA who they are.... lol). It wasn't long before Britney Spears came out and shortly after NeYo appeared on the roof and waved down to everyone.
Bella and I decided we had better go and try to find the other girls who we'd lost in the Pete chaos so we started heading back. We had to walk the whole way around the hotel there, so started heading off.
As we crossed the Grand Chancellor's driveway I looked over to the drop-off area and my heart dropped out of my chest. "Shannon" I said as I grabbed Bella's arm. "What?" she asked. "Shannon. Shannon. Shannon. Shannon." I just kept repeating in a state of complete shock. Shannnon was on his phone but looked up as we started walking toward him.
As we approached him he was chatting to the bell boy who was holding a huge trolley full of his bags. Bella tapped him on the shoulder and he turned and said Hello. I was wearing my 'Leto Sandwich' shirt i'd worn to the Taipei Meet & Greet so said to him "Do you remember this?" he said yes.
We asked if we could get a photo with him and he said Yes, as long as we were quick because he was about to leave. I jumped in beside him and Bella snapped a photo of us. She then jumped in and we got a couple of photos of the three of us together. His car was arriving so we had to be quick! I kind of gave his upper arm a stroke and said "See you in Highlands" as we stepped away from him and he jumped into his car. We gave him a quick wave as he drove off and that was that.
We couldn't beleive our luck. My gut instinct was telling me all night that I shouldn't leave and I'm so glad Bella and I stayed down there.
We screamed and hugged the whole way home in the taxi. I mean, what are the odds that we would actually get to meet someone famous, let alone one of the MARS boys down there?! I'm thanking my lucky Mars Gods for that moment!
It was then time to sleep off the jet-lag and wake up ready for another day of exploring LA!