Waiter gets canned after Twittering about 'Hung' actress Jane Adams
But have you heard the one about the waiter and Jane Adams?
The actress on the TV show "Hung" didn't respond to numerous attempts to be contacted, and HBO declined to comment on issues relating to its clients.
But here's the story we got from Jon-Barrett Ingels, a former waiter at the Barney Greengrass restaurant in Beverly Hills:
One afternoon, Adams came into the restaurant for lunch. Ingels, 31, served her an order of soup and a lemonade. Waiting on a celeb was nothing out of the ordinary, Ingels said, because due to the restaurant's proximity to major L.A. talent agencies, actors dine there regularly.
However, what happened next was pretty unusual.
Ingels dropped off the bill, which came to $13.44. Adams' face turned red as she fumbled through her purse, Ingels said. "I left my wallet in my car!" Ingels recalled Adams saying."I'm so sorry!"
Ingels told Adams it was OK to go to her car and come back when she found the checkbook. "Her face was plastered on billboards all over town," Ingels wrote on his blog after the incident. "It's not like I wouldn't remember who she was."
"She never came back that day," Ingels said on the phone from his home in West Hollywood.
The next day, a representative for Adams came in to pay the actress' tab -- sans tip.
Ingels thought it was a funny anecdote to tell to his few-dozen Twitter followers. "Jane Adams, star of HBO series 'Hung' skipped out on a $13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!" he Twittered.
Ingels soon forgot about the incident. Over the next few weeks, he documented his observations of other celebrities who buzzed around the restaurant.
Ali Larter came in for a drink, and, as Ingels noted in a tweet, was "not wearing a bra." In another update, Ingels asked, "When did Tori [Spelling] become hot?" In yet another, Office stars Mindy Kaling is chatting with B.J. Novak, whom Ingels described as "hungover."
About a month after the run-in with Adams, the actress returned. She stormed up to the waiter and slapped three dollar bills on the table in front of him, Ingels said. Clearly caught off guard, Ingels replied, "Thank you so much," he recalled. "You didn't have to do this."
"Well, I read about it on Twitter!" Adams retorted, according to Ingels.
Clearly feeling guilty for the embarrassing tweet, Ingels sent a few more tweets. "I love Jane Adams," he wrote. A few minutes later, he followed up by declaring her "a great actress."
But the damage had already been done. A Barney Greengrass representative began following his Twitter account, and he was soon confronted by his manager, he said. The manager reviewed a printout of Ingels' tweets in front of the defeated waiter, and said he was being fired due to various complaints -- one of them from Adams, Ingels said.
Barney Greengrass declined to comment due to a policy of not talking to the media.
Ingels still doesn't believe what he was doing was wrong. It was more documentation than slander, he asserted.
The out-of-work waiter is searching for jobs in catering to support himself and his daughter. Ingels still appears to hold some spite for Adams. "All she could think about was herself and her pride and her ego," he griped.
But Ingels acknowledges his own mistake. "In the end, if I didn't write anything, I would still have a job," he said.
-- Mark Milian
Photo: Jane Adams of "Hung." Credit: Chuck Hodes / HBO
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So a single bartender supporting a child loses his job because he twittered about a c list celebrity behaving badly? It's only fair that miss c-list celebrity be fired by HBO for the same reason. To all twitter followers: boycott HUNG and/or HBO until Jane is fired or AT THE VERY LEAST forced to compensate the bartender because he revealed what a horrible human being she evidently is. Seriously. What happened to the first amendment? Rush Limbaugh uses the PUBLIC'S AIRWAVES to call Obama a racist and nothing happens... but the hapless, struggling bartender loses his livelihood because he calls Jane out for being cheap, irresponsible, and mean? I mean...
Posted by: Alex | 10/25/2009 at 01:33 PM
Hey Jane, I didn't know who you were until this. But now I sure do!
Good news is, you can play a selfish bitch in any tv show you want now and we'll all totally believe your portrayal. You'll hardly have to act at all...kind of a silver lining on the whole thing for you. I sure hope there's one for poor Jon-Barrett Ingels, too. True, he wasn't very discreet, but he's a waiter, not your gynecologist. He was only twittering your public behavior after all.
Posted by: SaraK | 10/25/2009 at 10:30 PM
Hmmm.
Posted by: Ed Circusitch | 10/29/2009 at 08:04 PM
Alex & SaraK, Ingels didn't get fired because of Jane Adams. He got fired because Los Angeles restaurants utilize discretion as a means of earning clientele with any sort of notable profile (she may be a C-list celebrity, but it made it on this website). They also have the right to expect it from employees. A restaurant is a privately owned establishment and has the right to set rules for employees. If I were to share client lists publicly on my Twitter I'd be fired. If I were to share client lists and critique them publicly via Twitter I'd definitely be fired.
Ingels even understands why he got fired. And the description of his post Barney Greengrass situation is to play on our sympathy, and that of future employers. He probably already has another job waiting tables.
Posted by: Jayle | 12/31/2009 at 06:59 AM
The waiter is an idiot. You don't spread information and slander (cause that's what it is) about celebrities who come to your place of business. Screw the whole Jane Adams thing - this guy is making comments about celebrities and posting his opinions. That's fine if he sees them when he's out eating by himself, but as he's interacting with them in a business environment, you act professionally.
He didn't lose the job because of one actress. He lost it because he's unprofessional. And he deserved to.
Posted by: Matt | 01/01/2010 at 07:18 PM