UPDATE: Check out our fully-fleshed gallery of photos here.
I was a bit concerned about last night’s Fantasy Party hosted by P. Diddy. We all know how his first party went. And I’d heard rumors that Friday night’s party had been a bust. (Though when I talked to the pr people, they said 3,000 showed up the night before.) But by the time I got to the red carpet with tip sheet in hand, I was ready for quite the party.
Unfortunately, it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
Red Carpet Blues
I’ve learned one thing from my two nights of covering the red carpet: you never know what to expect. While celebrities obviously did show up at some red carpets, they did not at P. Diddy/Puff Daddy/Dirty Money’s Saturday party. We got there around 8:15, red carpet opened at 9, we saw our first celebrity, Omar Benson Miller, at 10. He was followed by DJ Steve Porter, Koa Misi, Robert Johnson, and then a correspondent for Conan (he had a pretty legit handlebar mustache).
Mark Sanchez sauntered by at one point, and then Dallas’ favorite reality star Melissa Rycroft with husband in tow walked by. She was very much pregnant, yet, I felt like the former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader actually looked pretty good in her sequin dress. I asked her if she knew that she had won our reality star contest back in January. She said Facebook and Twitter let her know. And she was very pleased to have won. “I voted a lot,” she said. I saw her a little later lounging in a chair in a back room clutching her husband’s hand. Part of me thought, “Huh, it would be kind of awesome if a reality star had her baby at P. Diddy’s party.” But it didn’t happen. Just another one of the party’s disappointments.
After about another hour and a half of waiting and very few more people walking down the red carpet, the Yahoo! Sports reporters decided to trek over to the Maxim party across the street. “We’ll be back,” they promised. I never saw them again. Apparently, they were too busy seeing Chad Ochocinco, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Kevin McHale.
Party People
The very large room at the Tower Building at Fair Park where the party was hosted was a bit daunting. There was a gigantic VIP section with white lounge chairs in the middle, two large bars (one with girls dancing behind a water/windowpane and another that had painted women on swings), dancing girls on podiums throughout, and one wall that had memorabilia. Three large cupcake displays sat next to the bar. The cupcakes, baked by Society Bakery, were quite delicious.
Around 12:45, P. Diddy made his appearance. He worked the crowd for about 30 minutes. People loved it. They were finally, finally partying with Diddy–worth every single penny of that $500 ticket price. Ya know, if you like catching a glimpse of a celebrity on a stage only after the masses of scantily clad booty dancers parted for him.
