Speaker 1: This is an I Heart original picture this. You're a
Speaker 1: resident of Hailey, Idaho, population of five thousand. Small town
Speaker 1: life is treating you well, but sometimes you don't want
Speaker 1: another quiet night. Sometimes you want to get loud. You
Speaker 1: want to see some live music. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of late night hangouts, like the Red Elephant Saloon, and
Speaker 1: some of them have live bands, mostly local talent, nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that. They sound good. For bigger names, you've
Speaker 1: got to head to catch them. Or Sun Valley, the
Speaker 1: big ski resort destination about fifteen miles outside of town.
Speaker 1: Hailey isn't necessarily the best place to turn the volume up,
Speaker 1: but in June things change all of a sudden. You
Speaker 1: can go see George Clinton, B. B. King, Bo Diddley
Speaker 1: legends of blues and rock and funk on stage in
Speaker 1: front of maybe a hundred other people in a small,
Speaker 1: intimate setting. They jam and play late into the night
Speaker 1: and into the wee hours of the morning. Haley has
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. Like most of the development
Speaker 1: happening around this time, this is the work of Haley
Speaker 1: resident and movie star Bruce Willett. He's turning the volume up,
Speaker 1: way up. He bought which was just a seedy little
Speaker 1: dive of a bar in Haley. That's Steve Kerns, then
Speaker 1: the mayor of Haley, and he bought it and completely
Speaker 1: remodeled it. What he didn't just remodey towards Pargolan down
Speaker 1: and built the whole new building with an entertainment lounge upstairs.
Speaker 1: And they brought in some quite a few naturally known
Speaker 1: acts to play them in with a first class restaurant
Speaker 1: downstairs as well. And that was a big deal for
Speaker 1: Haley to have that sort thing happening. Of all the
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis projects on Haley's main street. The mint is
Speaker 1: the crown jewel, the pst Resistance. It costs millions and
Speaker 1: it's fitting. Willis, after all, worked in a bar for
Speaker 1: years before making it in Hollywood. Now he owns one.
Speaker 1: It's a concentrated dose of Willis's urban New York lifestyle
Speaker 1: injected directly into the veins of small town Haley, and
Speaker 1: that mixture will soon prove to be combustible. This one
Speaker 1: time cowboy bar would soon be the site of an
Speaker 1: old school wild West showdown for I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: is Haleywood. I'm your host, Danish Schwartz, and this is
Speaker 1: episode four mint condition. The mint was easily Willis's most
Speaker 1: ambitious project to date in Haley, since going on a
Speaker 1: real estate buying spree under the veil of an umbrella corporation,
Speaker 1: the Xnay Investment Trust. He purchased the ailing property for
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars from its owner, a man named
Speaker 1: Wally Young, and set about reimagining it with the cat
Speaker 1: out of the bag. Willis and his employees at Valley Entertainment,
Speaker 1: which looked after his business interests in Haley, didn't deny
Speaker 1: newspaper reports Willis was spending millions of dollars to take
Speaker 1: the Rundown Dive Bar into a new era, one that
Speaker 1: would showcase his love of music, with live act and
Speaker 1: lots of Bruce Willis jamming with his own band, the Accelerators.
Speaker 1: But if this was going to work, Willis needed a
Speaker 1: little help managing the details, someone he could trust, and
Speaker 1: Joe McAllister, Willis's friend and business associate, knew just the guy.
Speaker 1: So Joe was actually doing some work on Bruce's house
Speaker 1: on seventy Street in Central Park West when I really
Speaker 1: started to get connected with Bruce. That's Rick Oliver, who
Speaker 1: would go on to become heavily involved with the men.
Speaker 1: I was Pedal corporate security for Paulo Ralph Lauren in
Speaker 1: New York for close to ten years. Bluddy of mine
Speaker 1: was one of his top designers, Kenny Thomas, but he
Speaker 1: wanted to get some of that product out to celebrities,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, you know, I can probably give
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis into some of these clothes. He goes great,
Speaker 1: you know, and I made it happen. Um, Bruce, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he liked the thought. He you know, he
Speaker 1: loved the clothes, and he said, you know, hey, who's
Speaker 1: this Rick guy? I want to meet him. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's what a connection was made. I met him a
Speaker 1: planet Hollywood. Uh. Mid nineties. Willis liked Rick, and Rick
Speaker 1: liked Willis. A little later on, Willis even gave Rick's
Speaker 1: friends a big surprise, Bruce do me a bachelor party
Speaker 1: after I got married, and he actually barking it for me.
Speaker 1: That's a good story to say. I had Bruce Barchen
Speaker 1: for me. You know, Willis told him what he was
Speaker 1: planning in Haley. And while you might expect Rick to
Speaker 1: be excited about the opportunity to get into the burgeoning
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis Industry. Rick was noncommittal. Joe invited me, I
Speaker 1: don't know, probably twenty times, and I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm not I'm not into this. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about Idaho. The only thing I
Speaker 1: know about Idaho was you know, skinheads and potatoes, right,
Speaker 1: which happened that then? That wasn't the truth, right, It
Speaker 1: was just just my perception, you know, living in Manhattan
Speaker 1: at that time. The other thing that gave Rick pause
Speaker 1: was that, well, not too many people looked like him
Speaker 1: in Haley. There wasn't a lot of black people up there.
Speaker 1: And initially I thought Joe was doing it to kind
Speaker 1: of you know, uh, bring some ethnics city, bring culture
Speaker 1: into the community, right, But Joe apparently wore Rick down.
Speaker 1: Bruce always has something going on during the holidays, like
Speaker 1: the fourth of July, he had a big fireworks show
Speaker 1: at the Rodeo, and he always did a New Year's party,
Speaker 1: which was you know, they bought everybody out, you know,
Speaker 1: John Kennedy, um, his fiance, just a lot of major
Speaker 1: Hollywood people and celebrities in general. So I would come
Speaker 1: out to some of those events, um and uh and
Speaker 1: visit when I wind up, you know, staying. I fell
Speaker 1: in love with the place. Everyone seemed to fall in
Speaker 1: love with Haley. It was just so idyllic, and Rick
Speaker 1: had plenty of reasons to stay. Beyond the beautiful scenery.
Speaker 1: He was proving useful to Willis's growing enterprise. I helped
Speaker 1: him with talent, you know, by the talent, recommended talent,
Speaker 1: and work with the artists when they got here, just
Speaker 1: making sure that they were okay and they needed anything
Speaker 1: artist relations if if you will, you know, I was
Speaker 1: Joe's right here man, and people are trying to get
Speaker 1: to me, to get to Joe, to get to Bruce,
Speaker 1: right because Bruce isn't you know, he's really not approachable.
Speaker 1: I mean you could see him, but he's not approachable,
Speaker 1: especially from a business standpoint. So you know, talk to Joe.
Speaker 1: And if they couldn't get to Joe, they would tell
Speaker 1: me stuff to tell Joe or they want to meet
Speaker 1: with Joe. And everything was kind of layered. There was
Speaker 1: always something happening. But even though The Mint was set
Speaker 1: to be Hayley's flashiest new hangout, not everyone would be welcome.
Speaker 1: After eighteen months of renovation work, the Mint's grand opening
Speaker 1: finally came in July five. The first floor was a
Speaker 1: spacious square feet accented with dark red brick and green
Speaker 1: awnings that blended into the nearby buildings, including the Haley
Speaker 1: Town Center across the street. Haley had never seen anything
Speaker 1: like it. If you're coming in from the street, off
Speaker 1: to the left, it's like it is a couple of
Speaker 1: small steps. You go up, and that's like the dining
Speaker 1: area right. The bar would be to your right, and
Speaker 1: the kitchen would be to the left of that, and
Speaker 1: if you kept going straight you walk out the back door.
Speaker 1: The ambience it was, it was it was pretty nice.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like fine dining or anything. If you walk
Speaker 1: to the right, there will be a staircase and an elevator,
Speaker 1: so you can take either the elevator up or you
Speaker 1: can take the stairway. Uh, And that's where the nightclub
Speaker 1: would be. Two floors, both typically packed. Was good for
Speaker 1: Willis and good for Haley, but not everyone was enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about the change. As the old Mint was demolished, regulars
Speaker 1: of the one time dive bar lamented its passing. Some
Speaker 1: asked to take vintage bricks and playfully throw them through
Speaker 1: an old window. A tribute to the bar's reputation as
Speaker 1: a tough drinking spot for the tough miners that once
Speaker 1: populated the town. The new Mint was definitely different. Here's
Speaker 1: Rick Oliver again. So the original Mint was just like
Speaker 1: an old cowboy that bar. Right, they carried down and
Speaker 1: they really rebuilded. I think Bruce had like a five
Speaker 1: star French chef in there cooking, so we haven't a
Speaker 1: testing with the French chef. And Bruce is there and
Speaker 1: to me is there Joe was sitting across from me,
Speaker 1: and the French chef is bringing out all this really
Speaker 1: good food. Right. Bruce goes, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: a struggling uh actor an in Hell's kitchen, he us
Speaker 1: to buy a big bag of frozen chicken wings, right,
Speaker 1: and I go, frozen chicken wings. He goes yeah, he
Speaker 1: goes Rick, and then you know, he goes and I
Speaker 1: get this tomato sauce that go like Hines go no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. He goes, like, came in a can. I go, Contadina,
Speaker 1: goes that's it, Contadina. He goes, put that put that
Speaker 1: on a men. He goes, chicken, I want the chicken
Speaker 1: cooked in the Contadina tomato and you can see the
Speaker 1: you can see the French chef like just getting red right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was playing, if he was serious,
Speaker 1: but I'm thinking he had to have been playing. But
Speaker 1: Willis wasn't always joking. Early on, it seemed like Haley
Speaker 1: might be stubborn when it came to the rules. Work
Speaker 1: on the mint was briefly halted when Willis insisted on
Speaker 1: putting in heated sidewalks, an amenity that ran a foul
Speaker 1: of Hayley's city code. This wasn't a heated sidewalk kind
Speaker 1: of town. Willis grew a little impatient. He said Haley
Speaker 1: was making him follow every letter of the law, that
Speaker 1: it was, in his words, getting ridiculous. He just wanted
Speaker 1: to get things going, make as big an impact in
Speaker 1: Haley as he had made in Hollywood. He wanted big acts.
Speaker 1: We used to bring in acts like BB King, Junior, Wealth,
Speaker 1: Charlie Daniel band. Uh. It was. It was a place
Speaker 1: to be. But Willis's taste in music wasn't necessarily Haley's
Speaker 1: taste in music. And while you think Willis would try
Speaker 1: to cater to the locals, he seemed to be more
Speaker 1: interested in what Bruce Willis wanted to hear, and he
Speaker 1: brought in an act of various kinds from the East. Well,
Speaker 1: most of it was jazz and the type of music
Speaker 1: that you know you would find in the inner cities
Speaker 1: on the East coast. Well, I shouldn't city from his area,
Speaker 1: Lee Slander one time, Hailey resident lawyer and amateur music critic.
Speaker 1: And it didn't go over at all with the locals
Speaker 1: because they didn't understand it, or you know, it just
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Uh, they're back at all. They still liked
Speaker 1: um western. If he had a Western band, the place
Speaker 1: would be packed, but he rarely did. Of course Bruce
Speaker 1: would get up there wasn't a while it was harmonic
Speaker 1: and try to ruin it all. I'm just kidding, but
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm not a big uh a big lover
Speaker 1: of that of that kind of music. But just because
Speaker 1: you showed up didn't mean you were getting in. The
Speaker 1: mint may have been a public place, but it was
Speaker 1: still subject to Willis's demand for privacy. He never permitted
Speaker 1: any outside professional photography inside the building, and he sometimes
Speaker 1: dictated who could be allowed on the dance floor. An
Speaker 1: area firefighter who was ribbing Willis about his old sea
Speaker 1: groom's wine cooler commercials ejected. Someone who wanted to bother
Speaker 1: Willis or Demi Moore not allowed. He would slip me
Speaker 1: a grand and say, hey, watching me, give me on stage,
Speaker 1: give me on stage, but I want you to watch
Speaker 1: to me, and you know, and I would you know,
Speaker 1: go alright, cool, you know, I just sit fire. You know,
Speaker 1: she had to go to bathroom whatever, I'd walk her
Speaker 1: way outside the bathroom door, you know, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: or hey, Rick, I got some people coming in tonight,
Speaker 1: or don't let this person in door, so I just
Speaker 1: covered the door. And they were times he would just
Speaker 1: hang out, you know, but yeah, it was. It was
Speaker 1: more like that than like, hey, I'll be on payroll
Speaker 1: for security. He which is you know, like everything else,
Speaker 1: you know, like his shows, like hey Rick, I need
Speaker 1: you and I helped me out at the top of
Speaker 1: the new entry list. Reporter Willis's longtime arch Nemeses. Definitely,
Speaker 1: if if he knew reporters or something or someone you
Speaker 1: know who was only to be a nuisance or pain
Speaker 1: in the ass, he would see him and say, hey,
Speaker 1: make sure that got in come in, But v I
Speaker 1: p s like John F. Kennedy Jr. And Daryl Hannah.
Speaker 1: They could waltz right in and maybe slip off. Some
Speaker 1: were more private. That's because the Mint had some secrets
Speaker 1: that were known to only a handful of people. You
Speaker 1: know the old movies where they had the bookshelves and
Speaker 1: you pushed the bookshelf and it turns into another room. Well,
Speaker 1: there was another room, you know. You push that and
Speaker 1: that's where the bathrooms are. And he's got a steam
Speaker 1: room and seats about eight people. Willis had a hidden
Speaker 1: room where he and his famous friends and his big
Speaker 1: name X could gather in total privacy. We're not sure
Speaker 1: if Haley's city code allowed for it, but it was there.
Speaker 1: I remember we had George Clinton there and it was
Speaker 1: time for the should start. What else says? Everyone's looking
Speaker 1: for George Clinton in his band? And I'm like, what
Speaker 1: the hell? We're all where where are they? Where could
Speaker 1: they possibly be? As you know what, we hadn't check
Speaker 1: one place? And I pushed open the door. I know,
Speaker 1: all in a in that steam room, just smoking weed.
Speaker 1: It was hysterical. I was like, man, you just need
Speaker 1: to get on stage. Man, what are you doing? And
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, sorry, And the amount of smoke that
Speaker 1: came out. It was, it was. It was pretty funny.
Speaker 1: But the real draw of the Mint wasn't the out
Speaker 1: of town as it was Bruce Willis, who frequently appeared
Speaker 1: on stage with his band, the Accelerators. You could just
Speaker 1: be having a beer at the Mint and Willis would
Speaker 1: just show up harmonica in hand. He wouldn't announce it
Speaker 1: in advance. So if he would have done that, that
Speaker 1: would have been a line around the block. Maybe he
Speaker 1: didn't want the undue attention, but it's also hard to
Speaker 1: be a performing artist on stage and not have undue attention.
Speaker 1: Every time he did one of these you know on
Speaker 1: the fly things, the place was packed. I mean, we
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I mean, remember we were over at
Speaker 1: Joe's house from morning and Bob kat Goldthwick, the comedian,
Speaker 1: you know, he came over and he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, looking for you know, Bruce Willis's house,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's looking at me like as the
Speaker 1: first black guy saw out there too, which probably was true.
Speaker 1: We said, what's happening, Well, we're doing the show tonight.
Speaker 1: Brucey called him and just said, you know, hey, let's
Speaker 1: do a show. I believe it was a Sunday morning
Speaker 1: because we were like, how is he gonna put this
Speaker 1: this together? You know, we're gonna put it up on
Speaker 1: a marquee, And sure enough put it up on the marquee.
Speaker 1: And and that night it was it was at Blobcat
Speaker 1: opened up with comedy and Bruce and Accelerators came up
Speaker 1: and did their things. But that was that was normal
Speaker 1: that and and Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis right, So
Speaker 1: you know at the time his name, you know alone,
Speaker 1: you know you hear Bruce Willis is there, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna show up if you're in town. Willis and his
Speaker 1: crew performed songs like show Me and who has a
Speaker 1: Good Woman? Good Morning, Little school Child, The spirit is willing,
Speaker 1: but the flesh is weak and more building out tune
Speaker 1: after tune, in a style that was less singing and
Speaker 1: more well. Willis had a name for it. In an interview,
Speaker 1: Willis once described his singing style as quote coloring. He was,
Speaker 1: in his words, someone who could holler loudly and in key,
Speaker 1: but maybe his singing was beside the point. Bruce is
Speaker 1: very very talented. I mean not just a good actor. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a great musician as well. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was more impressed with him being
Speaker 1: a performer on stage and and and playing the harp.
Speaker 1: And you know, Bruce has got this flag about you know,
Speaker 1: he's cool, he has swaged and and I was just
Speaker 1: in aunt. I thought as a musician he was he
Speaker 1: was better to be a musician than being an actor.
Speaker 1: I mean, the diehard roles and stuff didn't him. Bruce
Speaker 1: was okay as a musical performer. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: He's a better actor than he used a musician. So
Speaker 1: the reviews weren't unanimous. Even so, Bruce and his Accelerators
Speaker 1: were easily the highest profile act in town, and that
Speaker 1: made them a little bit of a target. There were
Speaker 1: other local groups like the Barnet's, a risque for women
Speaker 1: group that performed a gently salacious show. They like to
Speaker 1: poke a little fun at Willis singing He's a Local
Speaker 1: to the tune of He's a Rebel, Willis, they said,
Speaker 1: just ignored it. The Mint also started holding outlandish events
Speaker 1: like homespun versions of seventies game shows like The Dating
Speaker 1: Game or The Gong Show, shows Willis might have watched
Speaker 1: as a teenager area residents competed to win dinner at
Speaker 1: the Mint. The Gong Show was like an early version
Speaker 1: of America can Idol, where if the performers were terrible,
Speaker 1: they were gone. I was in the Gong Show with Bruce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did a Gong show thing I was. I wasn't
Speaker 1: had a holy field and I had a piece of
Speaker 1: taper in my hair, and you know, and and and
Speaker 1: Bruce has come around with the broom, you know, when
Speaker 1: somebody gets goned, and he'd come down and you know,
Speaker 1: um yeah, and he'd sweep, you know, he'd go around
Speaker 1: doing this thing. He's actually, he's incredibly funny. Where else
Speaker 1: in the world are you going to see Bruce Willis
Speaker 1: dismissing bad entertainers like a prototype Simon Cowell with a broom.
Speaker 1: In his performances with the Accelerators and the Gong Show,
Speaker 1: it was obvious that this was a Willis playground. Even
Speaker 1: the Mint's restaurant disappeared, replaced with a series of pool
Speaker 1: tables that better fit the leisurely hangout atmosphere. But it
Speaker 1: also seemed like Willis couldn't decide whether the Mint should
Speaker 1: be a business or just a glorified man Cave. An
Speaker 1: employee told a reporter that Willis once declared the bar
Speaker 1: open and free for everyone. The next day, the employee
Speaker 1: said he came storming in scolding employees because the mint
Speaker 1: was losing money. The original mint had been a rowdy
Speaker 1: drinking spot full of ordinary miners who wanted to blow
Speaker 1: off steam with a little drinking and maybe some fighting.
Speaker 1: The new mint was more civilized. But any combination of alcohol, jealousy, music,
Speaker 1: and late nights is bound to end in trouble. Rick
Speaker 1: Oliver found that out firsthand. Most people at the Mint
Speaker 1: were therefore a party to have a good time, but
Speaker 1: not everyone was on their best behavior. Here's leash Slender again,
Speaker 1: water or two of these guys, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to get too close to the names because don't want
Speaker 1: to get anybody in trouble, but a couple of them
Speaker 1: had been in brawls and raising hell downtown late at night,
Speaker 1: which was really unusual for us. It's a quiet little town.
Speaker 1: Nine ten o'clock, it's locked up, everybody goes home, And
Speaker 1: that did really get everybody's attention, he said, what's going on?
Speaker 1: While people in Haley were mostly low key, there was
Speaker 1: a contingent that didn't like being pushed around, and that
Speaker 1: led to some real problems, not because of Willis, but
Speaker 1: Willis's associate. There was that clash between perhaps one or
Speaker 1: two or maybe more Bruce's hanger on is. It run
Speaker 1: into a little problem with some of our local younger guys.
Speaker 1: Sometimes these melee's got a little out of hand. A
Speaker 1: man named Johnny Rolling told the press that he was
Speaker 1: visiting Haley from out of town when he claimed a
Speaker 1: Mint employee choked him and dragged him out by the neck.
Speaker 1: He lodged a complaint with the Hailey District Court. Another patron,
Speaker 1: Dale Disher, said he was also dragged out by his
Speaker 1: neck and pushed down the stairs. In both cases, the
Speaker 1: Mint security staff were the alleged culprit. Willis, of course,
Speaker 1: rarely commented to the press about anything, much less accusations
Speaker 1: of his customers getting knocked around, but spokespeople for Valley
Speaker 1: Entertainment asserted that anyone pursuing legal action against the bar
Speaker 1: was simply an opportunist looking to dip into Willis's deep pocket. Look,
Speaker 1: there are fights in bars. It's certainly nothing the Mint encouraged.
Speaker 1: But like in any bar, there were times when things
Speaker 1: seemed like they were going to go further, much further.
Speaker 1: And it was during one of those times that Rick
Speaker 1: Oliver had to step up in a big way, and
Speaker 1: not against one irate friend, but a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 1: I kind of got into something one night. There was
Speaker 1: a kid and he was I don't know, is its
Speaker 1: proper to us the word gay, you know? But I
Speaker 1: knew the kid because he owned a business. And catch
Speaker 1: them a group of cowboys giving him a hard time.
Speaker 1: I mean like, and they follow him into the bathroom.
Speaker 1: When I saw him following into the bathroom, I go,
Speaker 1: let me go, and I bet that you know they're
Speaker 1: gonna give a hard time. Rick didn't like where this
Speaker 1: was going. It's not that Haley was inherently prejudiced, because
Speaker 1: they weren't. But this was the es when people might
Speaker 1: be more prone to let bigotry slide but not wreck.
Speaker 1: And sure enough then it's seizing him and I go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: leave the guy alone, and they're like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: f you you want somebody, Yeah, let's go to take
Speaker 1: it outside, just to get him away from him. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a group of them, and I remember going
Speaker 1: to my car and I had my casiled weapons permitting
Speaker 1: everything they did. It was like something out of a Western.
Speaker 1: There was wreck So sing off with a group of
Speaker 1: homophobic cowboys in the middle of Hayley's main street, wondering
Speaker 1: if he might need to reach for the gun that
Speaker 1: was tucked in his pants. Well I didn't flash it,
Speaker 1: but it was in my my belt, right, so you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, what do you guys want to do?
Speaker 1: You know? And they were all mouth and they were
Speaker 1: they were kids, and they were just being drunk and obnoxious. Right.
Speaker 1: Someone called the police. The police arrived and they saw
Speaker 1: a black man with a gun in a heated scene
Speaker 1: with a group of white guys. And Rick was taken
Speaker 1: into custody. Yeah yeah, so you know, and they came
Speaker 1: and even with the consteal weapon prevent you know, this
Speaker 1: is so Idaho, they took me in and it was
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I had a decent attorney in
Speaker 1: I was released the next day on bail. But you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it shouldn't have happened. Thankfully, the Mint
Speaker 1: had a few nights that were that intense, but when
Speaker 1: they did happen, it caught people's attention. And because of that,
Speaker 1: there's a kind of irony that exists within the Mint
Speaker 1: that's worth mentioning. In retreating to Haley, Willis was looking
Speaker 1: for an escape from the spotlight, but the Mint brought
Speaker 1: it right to his proverbial front door. There was always
Speaker 1: someone trying to get a good story. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: one guy came out coming from out of town. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know what was going on, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to have breakfast. And at the time I was doing
Speaker 1: some p I security stuff, so I didn't know if
Speaker 1: it was a case he was working on or what
Speaker 1: have you. But as it turned out, he was with
Speaker 1: you know, was his Star magazine. Yes, Star magazine. Star
Speaker 1: for those who may not remember, was one of those
Speaker 1: big tabloids in the nineties next to the National Enquirer
Speaker 1: headlines like killer mom in secret romance with hunky prison guard.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the New York Times. People are making up
Speaker 1: stories and stories, you know, they just want to confirm
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. You know, there was one, you know,
Speaker 1: if I can recall correctly, something A got a mobster's
Speaker 1: wife in New York and the mobster was, you know,
Speaker 1: gonna put a hit on Bruce or something like that,
Speaker 1: and we like, you know what, Bruce's probably got more
Speaker 1: money in their whole mob family, the occasional potential shootout
Speaker 1: and running with Tabloid's aside. Rick had a good time
Speaker 1: with Willis with the men to and in Haley, but
Speaker 1: after a few years there it was time to move on.
Speaker 1: Rick eventually found life in Boise, Idaho, to be more
Speaker 1: to his liking. He's still there today. I'm still an
Speaker 1: artist management for a company called the Goal Agency Talent Buyer.
Speaker 1: You know, I just finished came off a big summer
Speaker 1: concert series here. Uh it's Expo Idaho. Ric also got
Speaker 1: a taste of what it meant to be as famous
Speaker 1: as Willis, even in a town as small as Haley.
Speaker 1: I can remember being with him, me and him and
Speaker 1: the girls. You know. It was like a Saturday afternoon
Speaker 1: and we're at the Mint first and obviously it's closed
Speaker 1: because it's it's the nightclub. It's in the the noon.
Speaker 1: So we're in there with the girls and you know,
Speaker 1: we're just in there dance and just me and him
Speaker 1: and the girls, the girls referring of course to his daughters.
Speaker 1: And we turn on the music and we danced and
Speaker 1: then these people walk in, right, and we're like, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: this is clothes today left, we got'm leaving. Then you know,
Speaker 1: we do that for a little bit, you know, and
Speaker 1: then we go next to the shorties to get I
Speaker 1: think we'll get a nice pain or something like that.
Speaker 1: And the same people they walk in and they're just
Speaker 1: staring and and you know, I get a glimpse of
Speaker 1: this right and I'm like, you know, what are you
Speaker 1: guys doing it? And today started like try and talk
Speaker 1: and this is like, you know what, I'm here with
Speaker 1: friends and family and you know, what are you doing here? Like?
Speaker 1: So I got a sense of that, and I got
Speaker 1: that with just from being around, you know, working for
Speaker 1: celebrities and and being in that kind of circle. Someone
Speaker 1: always wants something, you know, It's it's a tough it's
Speaker 1: a tough business. So now everybody knows that, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis live and de memor live and you know Hayley, Idaho. Right,
Speaker 1: So people are coming out of woodwork for whatever reason. Increasingly,
Speaker 1: Willis was realizing that he could still be found in Haley,
Speaker 1: could still have people coming out of the woodwork, and
Speaker 1: no matter what he did, his every move was going
Speaker 1: to be subject to scrutiny. The bubble of privacy he
Speaker 1: had wrapped himself in, had wrapped Haley in, was in
Speaker 1: real danger of bursting. So Willis decided to lean into it.
Speaker 1: Instead of being a quiet Haley resident, he opted to
Speaker 1: get political and the result was a disaster of nuclear proportions.
Speaker 1: The guy who had been sort of boost his money
Speaker 1: guy was someone that people who were intimidated by. He
Speaker 1: was apparently like a big dude, and he was still
Speaker 1: around on the streets of Haley sometimes and people were
Speaker 1: I don't think, like physically afraid of the guy, but
Speaker 1: they were intimidated by him. If you're enjoying Haleywood so far,
Speaker 1: remember to eight review and subscribe. It helps other people
Speaker 1: who might want to find the podcast, and it really
Speaker 1: helps us, the people who have made the podcast. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Haileywood is hosted by Danis Schwartz. This
Speaker 1: show is written by Jake Rawson, editing by Derrick Clements,
Speaker 1: Mary Do and me Josh Fisher. Sound design and mixing
Speaker 1: by Jeremy Thal, Derrek Clemens, and me Josh Fisher. Original
Speaker 1: music by Natasha Jacobs. Research and fact checking by Jake Rawson,
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson and Marissa Brown. Show logo by Lucy Quentinia.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Ryan Murdoch and our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Jason English. Special thanks to the people of Hailey,
Speaker 1: Idaho and all those who've shared their stories. Haileywood is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Until Next Time.