Huntington Beach man goes viral, gets sober with help of 87-year-old landlord
Bryan Blackmon likes to sit out on the front porch with his landlord, Elaine Montgomery, in Huntington Beach.
Montgomery is the original owner of her two-story home, purchased in 1976 and just a short walk from the beach on 9th Street.
On one nice afternoon in June, two young men in their swim trunks happened to walk by.
Montgomery, now 87 years old, tried to be thoughtful.
“She interrupted our conversation to say, ‘Hey, do you guys need to use the water hose to get the sand off of you before you get in your car?’” Blackmon remembered. “I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I started to get up and give them the water hose, and she literally pushed me by my chest, like, ‘No, I’ve got this.’
“She grabbed the water hose and started spraying them off in all of the ‘appropriate’ areas,” he added with a laugh.
Blackmon found the humor in the situation, getting some video. He added music and text and hit upload to his TikTok account, just before heading into his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in nearby Seal Beach.
When he got out of the meeting, the video had hit more than 100,000 views, and he was gaining thousands of followers.
“By that following morning at 6:30 a.m., it had already had 800,000 views,” Blackmon said. “It had gone viral to the max, and it just kept going.”
The next video he uploaded, where he showed Montgomery that he created her own TikTok account, garnered even bigger numbers. It now has more than 13 million views.
They play off each other well in the videos, and it has created a certain social media celebrity status for Blackmon and his no-nonsense landlord. He now has more than 108,000 followers on his main account.
He said the videos are never scripted, but they are often funny. If Montgomery isn’t in the mood, she’ll simply tell him “Don’t take my picture,” and he respects the wish.
Montgomery wasn’t ready for the sudden stardom. She said she went to the grocery store the day after the first video was uploaded and a lady asked her if she was Elaine, mentioning that she had seen her on TikTok.
“I was just blown away, totally,” Montgomery said. “I just couldn’t imagine it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Blackmon’s story is one of finding himself. He’s leaned into the TikTok celebrity status, going live on his account each morning at 5:30 a.m. and evenings at 6 p.m., often going down to the Huntington Beach Pier for those live streams.
But he’s also turned his life around during his three years living at Montgomery’s house. After battling alcoholism most of his adult life, he will be a year sober in January.
Blackmon, 46, moved to California from Texas five years ago. He bounced around Venice Beach, Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley, often living in his car. Later, he moved to Huntington Beach, ending up homeless again and in his car on Pacific Coast Highway before replying to a “Room for Rent” sign in Montgomery’s frontyard.
He had some dark nights in that upstairs bedroom, too. Blackmon, who works in the audio/video industry, told Montgomery one day that he was going out on a tour for a month.
“I lied to her,” he said. “Really, I was checking myself into rehab for 30 days. I didn’t know how to tell her.”
After having a bad experience at a facility in Santa Ana, Blackmon came home and told her the truth. She was supportive.
“Who knows what would have happened if Elaine would have kicked me out?” he said. “Would I have stayed sober? I mean, I don’t know the answer to that. I just know that things worked out in such a way to help me continue to stay sober and change my life around.”
Montgomery, who has two grown daughters who live nearby, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, understands the struggle.
“I didn’t like his [tattoos], but I overlooked it,” she said. “I had no absolutely no awareness of his addiction, because to me he was always just fine. I have a family of alcoholics, they’re recovered, but I know all of the signs. He covered it very well.”
Now Blackmon is sober, and he’s been able to monetize his TikTok account. Last week, money from the account allowed him and Montgomery to take a trip to Palm Springs, where they rode the aerial tram.
Montgomery is feisty as ever, but she also feels like she has a new family member.
“He goes to all of my family things with me, that’s just a given,” she said. “Everybody has accepted him as part of the family, and I feel in my heart like he’s my grandchild … And he feels the same way about me. At least, he says that.”
Blackmon likes encouraging others and interacting with his followers on TikTok. He said two friends from Texas, Erin Green and Chrisie Allen, help him manage the account and serve as moderators on his live sessions. He tries to “heart” every comment that someone gives, if not respond to them directly.
“I want to keep helping people as much as I can,” he said. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to be homeless, a drunken addict. I know what it’s like to be out of control.”
As far as his home life, Blackmon obviously considers it more than a room now. He helps out a lot around the house, though he’s started calling Montgomery “Demanda” on his videos due to her persistent nature.
It’s all in good fun. Blackmon also made shirts featuring Montgomery’s face and one of her trademark sayings, “You must have me confused with someone who gives a s**t.”
He and Montgomery, whose husband passed away years ago, seem to be two people who needed each other.
Earlier this week, he was a bit startled as he heard loud music coming from downstairs.
“I came down here and she’s putting all her pills together and she’s just got her phone at top volume,” Blackmon said. I said, ‘What are you doing, you’re rocking out down here?’ She said, ‘Well honey, I just felt lonely.’ I just gave her a hug and she hugged me back. She said, ‘Now that you’re here, I feel fine.’”
Montgomery keeps moving along too. She had a heart transplant 19 years ago. She was given a 32-year-old heart, leading her to joke that now she’s just older than 50 at heart.
She has a 94-year-old boyfriend and loves playing bridge six days a week — every day except Sunday, which is reserved for church.
Don’t ask her to explain her TikTok fame, though.
“I think it’s remarkable, but I think it’s sort of stupid that people are so interested in a stranger,” she said matter-of-factly, before walking out the door to head to the store.
Blackmon, who has gotten to know the generation gap very well, just laughed.
“She acts like she doesn’t [like it], but she does,” he said. “She loves the attention.”
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