Australian comedian Lewis Spears is known in his home country for fake stories to news outlets. Last year, Spears traveled to Los Angeles and pretended to be a famous photographer at a popular photo spot. He managed to fool not only aspiring Instagram stars but a national media outlet as well.
The experience was documented in the 8-minute video above (note: there’s some strong language).
Armed with a compact camera, Spears paid a visit to the iconic Paul Smith pink wall on Melrose Avenue that’s daily being used as a backdrop for Instagram portraits. He was there not as comedian Lewis Spears, but “Clive Palmer,” a famous fashion photographer that has photos featured in Vogue Australia.
His first order of business was getting aspiring Insta-stars to pose for his camera and do absurd things — things like shouting at the camera or pretending to drink out of a shoe.
As he was carrying out his shenanigans, however, Spears was delighted to see that a crew from ABC News had rolled up. Emmy Award-winning journalist Lana Zak had arrived to do a story for the late-night television news program Nightline.
Spears managed to get himself in front of the news camera for an interview with Zak. His expert insights were so compelling that he even got Zak to pose for his camera and bite into an onion.
And yes, a portion of Spears’ interview did air in the Nightline segment to a national audience in the US on September 20, 2019.
(via Lewis Spears via Fstoppers)
