PREACH IT! Marcus Jordan keeps up fine showbiz tradition of underage bar-hopping
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‘Last night was stupid,’ read a recent tweet from Michael Jordan’s 19-year-old son Marcus. “[Spent] 35k at Haze. Totals 50k something the whole day.’
Forget the part about a teenager somehow getting his mitts on $50,000, spending it all in a one-day partying jag in Vegas -- home of Haze -- and then bragging about it. Apparently that’s not the most interesting aspect of the story. Instead, it’s this: Members of the Nevada Gaming Control Board are interested in the tweet because the underage Marcus Jordan managed to get into an over-21 club.
Haze is at Aria Resort & Casino. Aria is owned by MGM Resorts, which has not commented on the matter. But for his part, the younger Jordan wants the world to know that, while the Twitter message did come from him, it’s, er, not the real him. He told a Fox Sports website that the tweet was a bad call.
‘I didn’t mean it the way it came across,’ he said. ‘My family and friends know the type of person I am.’
Right. He usually blows only, like, 20 grand when he hits the clubs in Vegas.
No matter what the control board rules, no one should be surprised that a celebrity kid got into a bar. Over in Hollywood, it’s been going on since forever. It’s illegal, of course, but given the money ...
... that a celebrity kid can bring into an establishment -- usually by drawing hundreds of other curious looky-loos -- it’s also a no-brainer for club owners. Police, meanwhile, have told me in the past that shutting down a bar for admitting rugrats is rare unless there are ‘ongoing activities that really pose a danger to patrons.’ In 1994, 19-year-old Drew Barrymore married Welsh-born publican Jeremy Thomas, then 31, at his L.A. bar, the Room. Barrymore, a recovering abuser of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, even treated herself to Champagne after her nuptials with the bar owner, she later told People (Barrymore and Thomas divorced later that year).
How did the two meet? At another club -– the Roxbury, on Sunset Boulevard.
And when Kelly and Jack Osbourne were still underage, they went clubbing all the time. Newspapers even printed reports of Jack and Kelly Osbourne hanging out at the Viper Room and the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard, and nary a peep of righteous outrage was heard about it.
At the time, Kelly was 20 and recovering from an addiction to painkillers; Jack was 19 and had gone through rehab for abuse of alcohol and Oxycontin.
Has much changed since then? Given the crazy times being enjoyed by people like Marcus Jordan, we’ll give you one guess.
-- Leslie Gornstein
Top photo: Marcus Jordan, left, with his dad Michael, majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, at an April 21, 2010, playoff game between the Bobcats and the Orlando Magic in Orlando, Fla. Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press
Second photo: Inside the Viper Room in 2008, by which time Kelly and Jack Osbourne were both over 21. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times