The woman who sent a gaggle of South Floridians scrambling for their cell-phone cameras earlier this week -- the one a P.R. rep from Guess claimed was Lady Gaga shopping in her store -- is actually a Christian singer from Fort Lauderdale.
Amy N. Evans, a singer at Calvary Chapel, was apparently helping a security company conduct training exercises when she set off a minor media storm and reportedly received lots of "Happy Birthday!" wishes from awestruck fans. (The real Fame Monster spent her birthday in Las Vegas.)
Miami New Times reporter Michael E. Miller spoke to Bill Ferrell, president of ASI Consultants & Associates, the security company that brought a slew of black SUVs and plenty of tough-looking bodyguard types to shop on Lincoln Road. Ferrell says his company was not intentionally misleading anybody.
"The girl that we used really does draw attention. You guys saw that on
Sunday," Ferrell said. "But at no time ever, ever, ever have we tried to portray
her as Lady Gaga."
From Miller:
Ferrell denies that Evans was a deliberate stand-in for the superstar. Instead, he blames the fiasco on a case of mistaken identity. "If you've got a team of guys standing around someone, obviously someone is going to think that they are somebody [famous]," he says.
But this isn't the first time Evans has been mistaken for Gaga. When it happened at a mall last year in Palm Beach Gardens, ASI bodyguards allegedly told people that Evans was, in fact, Gaga. At the time, Ferrell apologized for the confusion. In fact, he was so embarrassed that he put a link to the news story on ASI's website.
Given that the company's website is chock-full of photos of other celebrity lookalikes -- from Michelle Obama to Paris Hilton -- in similar training exercises, it's hard to believe that ASI isn't trying to trick the public into crowding around the faux famous people.
Ferrell even admits that the crowds make for better training sessions.
"Are we directly trying to achieve a crowd response to what we do? No. But if a crowd does happen to appear, then that's great," he says. "That's what these students have to be aware of when they become bodyguards."
So yeah, shock-crazed, pop-obsessed, pro-gay-rights freak show? Close. Check out the sweet Christian sounds of Evans below:
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