AIBU to refuse asking my celebrity friend’s husband for business help?

[Soontobesingles]

I have recently (in last three years) become friendly with a celebrity - her husband is also a celebrity and much much more famous than she is. I’ve met him three times in passing (he was polite but not really interested in me, which is fine).

My husband has never met this woman or her husband, though he knows I know her and have met him. When I say ‘friendly’, she and I have a common interest and meet a few times a year for social occasions, to go to events to do with our interest and we stay in touch by text and social media. She is hardly my best mate and I am very careful not to overstep because I am sure she has a lot of piss takers in her life. She is very nice and I like her company. Our shared interest is also very niche (think Japanese performance art) so it’s nice to have someone to share that with. We don’t discuss personal stuff really beyond the odd story about our kids. Anyway, recently my husband has got it into his head that her husband can do him a favour. Basically he wants her husband to reach out to his contacts that might facilitate a lucrative business deal for my husband. He has asked me to meet up with her to suggest this and arrange a meeting with the four of us. I have said absolutely no way, it’s cringey, embarrassing and would end my friendship. Her husband is obviously not going to set up a business deal for his wife’s weird art friend’s husband. It’s user territory and I don’t want to do it. Anyway my husband won’t let it go and has been going on for weeks. He is currently sulking and refusing to eat dinner with me because ‘I’m putting this woman’s feelings before my family security’ (he thinks he could earn big from the deal). His last thing was that I just want to be a celebrity hanger on and am letting the marriage down. I think I am being normal and he is unhinged, but need an outside perspective. AIBU?

Jesus no. How embarrassing that would be! You have to shut him down on this and tell him you absolutely will not humiliate yourself like this.

As unreasonable as my DH is being, him taking my phone without my knowledge/consent and contacting a friend of mine would be so out of character and so egregious to me I really do think it would end the relationship. I'd see it as a massive breach of trust. We don't tend to share phones or use one another's phones (although we have from time to time asked to use the other's phone for some urgent reason). I'm not sure he even knows my passcode, though I haven't actively kept it from him, and DSD definitely knows it! I really would be questioning everything about our marriage if he did this.

Do not do this. She won’t appreciate knowing that you and your DH have been discussing her husband’s potential usefulness in attracting business for your DH.

Actually I agree - this is one of those rare occasions where a flat out lie is best for all concerned.

Do not do this. Be prepared for her to never speak to you again if you do and to feel humiliation every time you see her.

I worked with and know a few well known people, and I arms-lengthed anyone who pestered me for introductions, contacts, favours, autographs, charity appearances etc etc.

It is tiresome, inappropriate and people in the public eye need to trust friends and acquaintances not to exploit them or hassle them

Take it from me (OP's DH!): if you approach this woman over this she will distance herself from you.

But also people go daft around fame-adjacent people. (I have never used that phrase in my life but it works here!).

In my village there is the mother of a very famous celeb. Fuck me the genuflecting that goes on- and she milks it to the max. She is a bit of a rude cow tbh and in anyone else this would be acknowledged but with her it's 'hahahah! Isn't she MARVELLOUS?!!'. She isn't marvellous. She's a rude bitch who milks her son's fame for all it's worth and behaves like she is Queen of the County with accompanying demands at public events (like the village fete where she has people scurrying around her bringing her glasses of local cider she never pays for).

It wouldn't be unreasonable for it to happen organically. Like if the husbands were both picking wives up from some extremely niche knitting exhibition that overran, got chatting, found out they have the same sense of humour and it went from there. But that's not what DH wants.

It would be equally unreasonable if the famous DH had got it into his head that OPs DH could meet him once then immediately insert him into his life and sector, no questions asked, and procure favours from his mates just because their wives happen to be in the same retro Bolivian pan pipe group.

Time for a new husband. Hes trying to manipulate you into this with not a shred of care that it will destroy your friendship. Red flag, gross, cringe, ew.

Your husband doesn’t understand how things work in the real world

Your husband sounds like a right sad wanker.

Absolutely do not do this. Your husband is being a complete numpty. My son attends a specialist school and there are a few celebrity parents that you sometimes bump into - think BBC presenters and retired footballers etc. The other parents behave soo cringe around them, I get intense secondhand embarrassment. This would be it but a 100000 times worse.

I also want to add that your husband’s behaviour is disgraceful. He should be ashamed of himself and I also really think you should show him this and all the responses that say he’s being utterly unreasonable. It might teach him a thing or two!

I was hoping to hear from OP that DH had come down to earth a bit and begun to get some sort of rational perspective on his non-starter idea.
OP has already shared that DH's mental health might have been rocked by two v. recent bereavements within close family (brother & father, were they 'steadying' male role models/influences?).

It could be that DH is becoming destabilised. OP should be aware of a possible MH crisis in the offing.
Certainly his idea of Celebrity Friend's Husband coming across to support a financial deal is - er - more than a bit crazy. Such that, if I was OP, I'd be asking myself whether DH was a bit bi-polar, is there any history? Because this fixation has the marks of inflation and of the "grandiose" part of the cycle of delusion, in BP disorder, which can manifest in a psychotic episode.

Sorry, OP. But best to look bad fortune straight in the eye.

This is the key point isn't it.

It's certainly true that this is how the rich get richer - a friend of a friend sets up a lucrative contract fot them.

BUT you can't just walk into those kinds of relationships - your DH would have to have something concrete to offer that would make it worthwhile (either for the friend's husband or for the eventual contact).

so no, @Soontobesingles you're not being unreasonable at all.

And OP’s husband somehow thinks SHE is the one who wants to be the celebrity hanger-on?

Sorry , to suggest this. But your husband sounds desperate and a bit delusional. Does he live out some secret life in his head like in film the Secret Life of Walter Mitty.?

He also sounds a bit sad really. Get him checked out by a Doctor.

Your friendship with your friend sounds delightful..Don't let him mess it up.

😻
X

Ew, no.

I have a few 'celeb' (ish) friends and occasionally my sister comes up with some stupid thing she wants me to ask them - the answer is always 'no' followed by some sulking and a firm 'fuck off' to back up the no. Fortunately it is rare as they are famous for the thing I do/am involved in and thats absolutely nothing to do with anything she does or is involved in...

I once had a friends very much more celeb husband do me a ring tone/voice message for my phone - that was a treat from them both in return for me doing something nice for them and even THAT felt very very odd.

I cannot imagine the 'hole in the ground swallowing you up arse clenching horror' of asking, unprompted, for a favour, for a third party, from someone you don't actually know that WOULD put that person in a position of looking a right tit if they did it - as trying to help a random blokes fantasy business idea absolutely would.

I think you need to find out why he is so determined THIS is the answer as I have to echo other posters here - if it was such a great business, it would not need these contacts assistance.

I've told the story on another thread about a celebrity I was at work with. We wanted an impromptu photo of us I could send to my editor for mutual publicity. We asked someone to take it. A queue immediately formed of people wanting a photo-op. The celebrity put up with it with good grace, but we were cringing.

No way on God's earth is it ever ok to use other people for your own ends, celebrity or not. Even asking is shabby and underhand on his part and if he is in trouble business-wise then he needs to man up and sort it out without attempting to hang off anyone else's coat tails and actually that's all the more reason for nobody to touch him with a bargepole.
Tell him to pack in the requests because, whatever his behaviour towards you, it's not going to happen and then take yourself away from his petulance and moods for the weekend if you possible can.

Without wanting to out myself, my husband is a sleb, in the orbit of some very big name slebs. Yeah, in all likelihood, it would just be a no to someone they don't directly know. Even doing favours for peole they do know is dubious, they have a rep to maintain and being involved with anything that they can't 100% know won't tarnish that public face is not going to fly.

My DH has done the odd favour for people very close to him and been put in difficult positions, only such as the recipient not being completely professional (late to set, not quite enthusiastic enough etc, nothing illegal!) But even that in an industry based on reputation, public image and networks (full of gossip) can be damaging. My DH wouldn't ever want to offend or belittle anyone, he'd not get involved but wish your DH well.

As his wife I'd be put out that your friendship seemed to be aimed at angling deals through my DH (I absolutely see that's not what you're doing OP, you sound lovely). It's a very, very fickle business and people in it do use each other all the time tbh, but that's made me all the more appreciative of real, solid friendship. Protect yourself and your integrity, your DH shouldn't be asking you to do anything that feels wrong to you.
The celebrity status is actually a red herring, I mean it would still feel off to ask a school mum friend's non-cleb dad to rustle up business if your DH didn't know him, wouldn't it?

Say that you started to ask her and she interrupted to say that people were always asking her to ask her DH for favours and she always says no and shuts it down, as it makes thing so awkward.

Tell him to join the Free Masons instead 😂

Your OH, as you've said, IS unhinged.

You're absolutely right.

Don't even try to talk to him. Show him the answers to your query/ this post...

This

Whilst agreeing with most of the posts here in that your DH should never have put you in this position, would he believe you if you said you’d raised it with your friend and she’d shut it down immediately?
Obviously I don’t condone lying, but maybe he’d back off a bit and you could have a conversation about the state of his business etc?

You told him no. That should be the end of it. He's trying to force you otherwise.