Angel or Devil. You Decide

You've got to love it.  Well, you don't, but I do.  NPR's News Quiz "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" yesterday featured three questions about entrepreneur Thomas Kinkade.  My, my.  Those stories led me to dig a little more.  Here are some interesting stories about this supposed paragon.

Kinkade, whose dreamy cottage prints have cropped up in stores at malls everywhere professes to be a devout Christian and claims that his work is intended to contain a larger moral dimension.

This LA Times story is called "Dark Portrait of a 'Painter of Light'".  The stories below come from the article.

I won't even get into what I think of his paintings as "art". 

#1  Outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, he urinated on the statue of Winnie the Pooh saying "This One's for You, Walt."  It's not clear to me if he was a fan of Walt's or not.  No matter.  Apparently he refers to it as "ritual territory marking" and claims that he grew up in the country and is used to peeing outside.  When asked about relieving himself in a hotel elevator (that would qualify as "indoors", I believe), he responded that it might have happened, but he did not remember. (If you did something like that, you might not remember either...)

I think a lot of men like to urinate outdoors.  Not sure Disney's front lawn is the best venue, though.

#2  In testimony and interviews, former employees describe a Thomas Kinkade who often went to strip clubs and bars, and got out of control when he became intoxicated.  At a Vegas performance of Siegfried and Roy, the painter became so obnoxious, yelling "codpiece, codpiece" that people around him moved away.

#3  Apparently he repeatedly cursed the wife of an employee who tried to help him up after he fell off his barstool.

#4  Kinkade met with a number of gallery owners, signed some prints, pressed some flesh  (oh, yeah).  Apparently the drinks were flowing and he began to discuss favorite parts of the female anatomy.  At one point, he turned to one of two women in the room, pressed his palm to her breast and said "these are great tits".  It was witnessed by a number of people.  "She let out a yelp and backed away".

Kinkade later testified that there had been drinking and rowdy talk.  His explanation of the incident: "but you've got to remember, I'm the idol to these women who are there.  They sell my work every day, you know.  They're enamored with any attention I would give them.  I don't know what kind of flirting they were trying to do with me.  I don't recall what was going on that night."

Yuck, what a creep.

#5 Less salaciously, he has been successfully sued by former associates for unethical business practices that drove them to financial ruin while enriching his account and those of other partners.

Guess I'm not going to be buying any of his paintings.

Comments

[keewee]

I did not know this about Kincade, I thought he was a 'goody two shoes'
turns out he is a real jerk.

[Shirley]

I had heard some of this about Kinkade before, especially his dodgy business practices. "Creep" sums him up nicely. "Creep with no artistic talent" would do too.