Billionaire Napster founder Sean Parker’s Lord of the Rings/ Medieval themed wedding was as gorgeous as it was obnoxious, but let’s at least give the man props for going all the way in his attempt at authenticity.
As it turns out, he actually asked Sir Ian McKellen — through a mutual friend — to officiate the wedding in character as Gandalf the Grey (later Gandalf the White also known as Mithrandir, or Gandalf Grayhame, Stormcrow by his enemies and The White Rider by those who saw him mounted on his noble steed, Shadowfax. Okay, clearly I would have loved having Gandalf officiate my wedding, but that’s another story.)
McKellen turned down the over $1.5 million dollar offer because, in his words, “Gandalf doesn’t do weddings.” Or in my fantasy, he said. “I shaallllll passsss!”
He clarified, according to the Daily Mail: he absolutely would have done it as himself, being a fan of love (he officiated at Sir Patrick Stewart’s recent nuptials). But he was not interested in “dressing up” which in his mind is for plays and films.
And yet I guarantee if someone had asked him how he would get from England to Big Sur, California, in order to perform the task, he would have replied: “Fly! You Fools!”
Or perhaps he would have said something about the nature of men like Sean Parker, who above all, crave power.