Welcome Wednesday: Tell us about your celebrity close encounters

[Monique vdB]

It's Wednesday, aka the day we welcome some of the thousands of folks who joined the community this week.  I will tag a few of you in the comments, but I'm waving at all of you! 👋🏻

I'm from L.A. so this topic was inevitable: What celebrity close encounters have you had? 

I've had many celebrity encounters over the years but in true Angeleno fashion, I generally tend to play it cool. Except I got to unleash my inner fangirl at the Hamilton stage door in 2016. 

The night I was there, Jerry Springer, Blair Underwood, and Kim and Kanye were all in the audience, and at the stage door afterward I got my program signed by some of the actors. Lin-Manuel Miranda called me "sweetheart" and I will cherish that moment forever.

Here I am at the stage door looking very happy with Leslie Odom Jr. in the background, and I think the fan in front of me who I was chatting with that night is also a mildly famous author. 

So tell us: what celebrities have you spotted out in the wild? 

[Vero Rivas]

Hi @Monique vdB 

 How fantastic !!!

[Monique vdB]

Welcome! Have you ever met a famous person?

@Miguel Angel Velazquez Solis @Carlos Quinó @Marwane Yazback @Joseph John @d.pavlova @Daniel Chechik @Eva Pujadas @John O_Rourke @Kamin J Shah @Nastassia Buzava @Oscar Lara Gil @Pete Cottier @Rachid GOSSA @Tess Glastra van Loon @Curtis Lam @Danny Who @Denis Kurdoglu @Edpax @eero.suominen @Jai Stuart @Julian Rabe @Lonneke Bakker @Stu Francis @Sweta Rawat @Thomas Hui @Transorg Kft. @Venkatesh @"Sue Mi" Kim @Ahsan Khan @Amanda Kelley-Teng @Anna Paris @BUG SNAPPFOOD @Daniel Hönig @Felix Wang @golan sinvany @Howard Chalmers @MD AHSANUL ALAM @Michael Mordis @Nathan Lightfoot @Ronaldo Huang @Sharmila P1 @zhic @Ajay Khajindar @Alice Park @Andreas Peter PRIVAT @Anthony Radich @BALJEET DHINGRA @Beloi Marquez @Bonnie Veer @damadormolina 

[eero.suominen]

Hello and what a lovely story you had. Back in 2007 I was in Camden London on a holiday and randomly ran into Amy Winehouse . I had to take a photo of us two and we  had also a nice little chat.

[Monique vdB]

How about y'all, any close encounters of the celebrity kind? 

@Dario Seidl _MediPrime_ @engin-gunbay @Fiotakis Michael _Contractor_ @Gabriel Lagóstena @Hieu Tran @J_Hein @Jean Paul Suijs @kevin.hollande @Krishnan Menon @laurent @Legendarb @Michael Resnick @Norbert Kurpiel @nsmyth @Pau Ombao @Paul Shoeman @Petr František Machovec @Raman Sandhu @Richard Johnson @Sean Anthony @Sebastian Geschwill - DevSebOps @Shivam Srivastava @Sunil Bommaji @Theo Skye @Theresa Shropshire @Vikranth @VinayagamoorthyThiruppathi @Vugar Jafarov @Walter CF Lui achung@dwdev.com @Amalta Pillay @Carlos García-Gáfaro @Christian Willumsen @daniel.kenny @Dennis Törnkvist @Diego Loaiza Rico @Diego Silva @dkilian @Dmitrii Paireli @Eslley Pereira Costa @Fahad Abbas @Garben Tanghe @Goshia.grzebien @Helen Pippard @Ian Robertson @info_login_hu @Ion Axenti @Jason Xie @Jian Chen @[deleted] 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

So, ignoring the community leaders and other Atlassian related celebrities:

• I've shaken hands with Queen Elizabeth, and her son, Wingnut^H^H^H^H Charles
• I've been propping up the bar while bits of Iron Maiden order drinks next to me three times
• I went to school with the queen's private secretary (the one who asked her to do the infamous James Bond helicopter drop for the 2012 Olympics) Sir Edward Young 
• John Barnes (of the Liverpool football team at the time) bought my friends a replacement round of drinks after one of the other players stumbled into me and spilled the round I'd just got.
• Before I joined Adaptavist, I went for drinkies with them on Old Street, opposite their offices.  Bill Nighy dropped by
• I said hello to Dawn French and Lenny Henry when I was waiting to pick up my sister from her friend's house (they lived next door)
• But the only celeb I've had more than a fleeting contact with is Sandie Shaw - she and I would chat while I made tea for her and mum for their work sessions (my mother has many diverse skills, but making tea is not one of them.  She's even worse than that lady who was a meme for a while for getting every. single. step. utterly. wrong.)

[Monique vdB]

I am most impressed by Bill Nighy, Dawn French, and THE FREAKING QUEEN ARE YOU KIDDING ME.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I left out all the people I walked past while I worked for the BBC - never interacted with most of them beyond giving BRIAN BLESSED directions to the "One show" studio and using my security card to open a gate for Jeremy (Top Gear) Clarkson when he'd forgotton his.

[Helen Griffiths {Capgemini}]

It's OK that I read BRIAN BLESSED in BRIAN BLESSED's voice, isn't it? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, it was BRIAN BLESSED with his voice.

He was walking to a studio next to my office as I was walking to another BBC building (or the tube, can't remember).  He sounded like a grumpy thunderstorm coming towards me, to the point where I was rummaging for a 'brolly before realising thunderstorms don't rumble in English. 

I was nearest, I showed him to the doors (glass, so you can see reception behind it), and reassured him he was in the right place, then got on the tube and mopped up all the blood from my ears.  He's a clever and funny man, but, well, quite loud.

[Helen Griffiths {Capgemini}]

Most famous person i've met is Rupert Grint (most famous as being Harry Potter's best friend) - he was really lovely. I've met lots of 'celebs' that work for the BBC - David Dickinson (on more than one occasion), Jeremy Paxman, a couple that do a show called Homes under the Hammer etc. 

None that match yours though @Monique vdB! When I was in Vegas for Summit last year, I was on the look out, but didn't see any (or if any walked past, I never noticed!)

[Monique vdB]

@Helen Griffiths {Capgemini} Rupert Grint is a pretty good one! Did you see he just had a baby? 

[Brant Schroeder]

I don't know if I would recognize a celebrity even if they were standing right in front of me.  I don't really pay attention to that stuff.  I have had run ins with celebrity animals in our neck of the woods.  

[Kristin Lyons]

My photo was in the original Pet Semetary movie so I met a handful of the people on set, but I don't remember any of it - I was so young!