‘Do you know who I am? I’m a big star, and I can look you up … blow you up’

It must be something they learn in “How to behave like a celebrity 101″; how to behave like a jerk. He attacked Courtney Scott, a student intern working as a reporter for the Savannah Morning News, with the above sentence in response to a simple question. Williams is promoting Partnership for Prescriptive Assistance’s Help is Here Express, which claims to have helped 4.5 million people get their prescriptions for free or close to that. Williams is their spokesman, who suffers from MS. He asked her if she suffered from any disease, and she answered “no”.

The question that ticked him off, was

“Do you think pharmaceutical companies would be discouraged from research and development if their profits were restricted?”

He responded angrily with:

“I’m here as a patient advocate talking about the fact that medications available today are saving people’s lives, that’s what saving mine and after that, this interview is done.”

Then he snapped his fingers, said “thanks” and terminated the interview.

Afterwards, Scott and two of her colleagues went into the Westin to do a story on gingerbread houses that were exhibited there. Montel approached them with his body guard, still incensed. Getting into Courtney’s face, pointing his finger, he said:

‘Don’t look at me like that. Do you know who I am? I’m a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up.’”

At that point he was pointing his finger at all of them. He may have overreacted, but you will seldom see someone turn around and do what he’s done to ‘fix’ things.

Williams released a statement offering an apology and an invitation to his television program.

“I am really saddened by the incident that took place yesterday after such a glorious visit to Savannah to help patients in need. A series of unrelated personal events, including the highs and lows of my daily battle with MS, caused me to overreact to this situation.

However, I am not using that as an excuse for my behavior and I accept full accountability for my actions. Regrettably, I reacted childishly to the situation and for that I truly apologize to all concerned. I would like to invite Courtney and her family to appear on my show for a public apology.”

It was a reasonable question she asked…you have to wonder why he responded in the way that he did to a young lady. He should still answer the question, even if he used his disease as an excuse to behave badly and now makes a big production out of apologizing for it. It might be a ploy to get more attention on the pharmaceutical organization he represents.

I’d like to know how that organization gets medicine for people for free. We’re not a socialist form of government and he do not have national healthcare. So what’s the catch and how do they undercut the pharmaceutical companies? Won’t that cause damage down the road, just like Canadians selling American-made medicines back to Americans for a profit? America is footing the bill for part of their National Healthcare program by giving Canada Medicines under cost. No business can survive very long, doing that. The reason drugs are expensive here is because we are the only country in the world that develops new ones. That’s called Research and Development, which costs money. That is part of what’s embedded in the cost of medications and drugs here.

It’s unfortunate that people who want everything for ‘free’ only think of themselves. I don’t agree with someone traveling the country helping people to beat the system.

X Posted at Cao2