When Tyrese Gibson walks the red carpet at the Furious 7 world premiere on April 1, he’ll be accompanied by a special guest unaccustomed to the glare of the paparazzi cameras – a Filipino-American called Jay R Garcia.
Garcia became a “brother for life” to Tyrese – and an internet sensation – after answering the star’s desperate Twitter plea for help. Tyrese had missed his flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles after attending a Furious 7 preview screening on Tuesday, March 17th.
He wrote: “URGENT!! I missed the last flight out of San Fran. I need to get to LA right now – who wants to do a road trip to LA with me? I gotta do @bigboy (radio show) in the morning, 7am”.
Fan Garcia offered to help and turned up to drive Tyrese on the six-hour, 400-mile journey to Los Angeles.
On the way, Tyrese posted a photo on instagram with the message: "My life is our insanity – last night I was on a silver G5, tonight I'm in a silver RAV4 Toyota…"
The aforementioned G5 is a private plane – the Gulfstream G-V (with a US$55 million price tag) – quite adequate for a transatlantic crossing. Could it be that Tyrese was returning from another Dubai trip?
Along with a picture of his new friend, Tyrese posted: "This is my driver from San Francisco. So if anything happens to me — he did it lol! …- I ain't scared — just a little ha!"
On the way to LA, Garcia burnt some rubber Furious 7-style to get Tyrese there on time – but perhaps overdid it a little as the pair were pulled over by police for speeding along the way.
The next morning, Tyrese posted a selfie of him and Garcia with the message: "We made it! Bro, you literally saved this morning! This is a reminder there are still people in the world with big hearts who just want to help."
Multimillionaire Tyrese offered Garcia money to say thanks for the ride, but the good Samaritan turned him down several times. Tyrese insisted on putting his new friend up in a hotel suite to rest before the long drive home.
Tyrese then posted: "A special love offering will be under his pillow and I'm going to have him join me for the premiere of #Furious7 as my personal guest … we're brother for life after this journey."
The hidden “love offering” turned out to be $1000.
The next day, Tyrese reposted Garcia's own instagram message: "Sometimes things are worth taking the risk for… We'd all do it for our friends, right? I gained a friend, brother and a new family. I jumped on this wholehearted without any expectations. This experience alone is more than enough. But he made sure his brother was being taken care of…. He insisted! It's not about material things but the memories that come with it. #JayRAndTyreseAdventures."
artslife@thenational.ae
