Waiter Jon-Barrett Ingels Fired For Twittering About Hung Star Jane Adams

Actress Jane Adams, star of the HBO show Hung, not only stiffed a waiter on her meal tab (and his tip), but later contributed to his getting fired for Twittering.

Adams pulled a "dine and dash" after being served by waiter Jon-Barrett Ingels at the Beverly Hills restaurant Barney Greengrass.

Ingels (aka PapaBarrett) wrote about the celeb's skipping out on Twitter:

Tues: Jane Adams, star of HBO series "Hung" skipped out on a $13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!

His not-so-subtle Tweet later came to Adams' attention (and his boss's).

According to Brand X (and Ingels), here's how it all started:

Ingels dropped off the bill, which came to $13.44. Adams' face turned red as she fumbled through her purse, Ingels said. "I left my wallet in my car!" Ingels recalled Adams saying."I'm so sorry!"

Ingels told Adams it was OK to go to her car and come back when she found the checkbook. "Her face was plastered on billboards all over town," Ingels wrote on his blog after the incident. "It's not like I wouldn't remember who she was."

"She never came back that day," Ingels said on the phone from his home in West Hollywood.

The next day, a representative for Adams came in to pay the actress' tab -- sans tip.

About a month later, Adams finally got wind of the Tweet. She returned to the restaurant, stormed up to Ingels, and gave him (finally) his $3 tip -- noting that she'd read his snarky post on Twitter.

Story continues below

advertisement

Ingels later tried to undo the damage with some complimentary Tweets about Adams:

For the record I think Jane Adams (Hung) is a great actress!!

1.I love Jane Adams (Hung)!! 2.Jane read my tweet about not tipping and came in today to leave me $3. 3. Power of Twitter

Not a chance. He was fired about two weeks after his second run-in with Adams, and has been documenting his joblessness via Twitter ever since:

"Just sold my bed and TV at a yard sale. Yep, that's what it's come to," he wrote October 3, 2009.

Comments

[FallenAngelII]

People need to stop making excuses for her. She left the restaurant WITHOUT TELLING THEM. She just up and left. Which is ILLEGAL.

But that's not her biggest misdeed. When the waiter told the TRUTH on his Twitter-account (because Adams in no way disputes what he said), she had the gall to file a complaint against him to get him fired. Yes, because obviously, if you're being made to look bad, let's punish whoever's doing it, even if they're merely telling the truth!

You DON'T save your reputation by ruining someone else's life, especially in this economy. Now Adams, being a pretty well-paid actress may not realize that in this economy, having a job, even a minimum wage one, is a huge blessing. But she maliciously filed a complaint against the waiter and now he has to sell off his things just to survive. Thank you, Saint Adams!

In order to absolutely nothing to help your reputation (because, really, did his firing somehow "heal" her reputation?), you've ruined a man's life for merely speaking the truth!

[FallenAngelII]

Adams did something illegal: She dined and dashed. Why didn't she have them come by the same day? Or just swing by an ATM to withdraw some cash? Or just bring her credit card to the restaurant? It makes no sense for her to just leave and then have someone pay the next that.

Innocent mistake? She went to her car to retrieve her purse, which she claims she'd left in the car. THEN SHE LEFT. What, she ACCIDENTALLY drove away from the restaurant and forgot all about it 'til the next day?!

The fact that she had the gall to file a complaint against the waiter after he complained about it on Twitter shows how sanctimonious she is. He didn't really say anything heinous about her. All he said were the facts, no conjecture. She didn't pay, had someone else pay for her the very next day and they left no tip. If her reputation was being "smeared", it wasn't being done so maliciously since she doesn't despute what the waiter is actually saying. She should've relreased a statement giving us all of the details instead of filing a complaint against someone who was speaking the truth.

How horrible! Obviously complaint-worthy so that he'll lose his job! Unless he treated her badly in some way when they met face to face, that was a highly vindictive and a-holy thing of her to do.

[SethBLiNK]

For the past four days, I've been posting about this story and getting into huffpo-brawls with the vast majority who think that Adams is a terrible person and Ingels an innocent vicitm.

I've been wondering why so few agree with me that Adams made an innocent mistake, attempted to rectify it and then got angry because her reputation was being smeared?

I was wondering if the disparity in opinion comes from that fact that I live in Los Angeles, and know how most restaurants love the cache of having celebs dine at their establishment, but at the same time know they need to protect the privacy of those same celebs, something anybody who has worked at such a place for five years should know.

But then I reread the original story, which bears no authors name and realized why the strong feelings against Adams. It's the way it's written.

Before going into the facts, the first two paragraphs make it seem like Adams meliciously ducked her tab and stiffed her waiter and then demanded he be fired. None of that jibes with the facts that are later described.

There are people here who are calling her a thief, saying she should have been arrested, and hoping the kharma gods make her poor and miserable.

And all because the Huffington Post published this biased lead.

[TequilaMockingbird]

Ya Know.. It really did seem as if we heard/read two different stories.. Same thing on the "Hilary Swank Sleeps Nekkid in front of Children'

[SethBLiNK]

I didn't comment on the Hilary Swank story, and if I had, we would have been in agreement on that one. Unless she went to breakfast naked, in which case you and I probably would have differed on whether or not the wait-staff should tweet about it.

[SteveDenver]

Someone teach him how to spell "paid"
She already taught him the cost of being a Twitter blabbermouth
Now if only she would learn to be gracious and attentive: pay your bill, lady; don't be a b!tch

[TequilaMockingbird]

Hmm.. There are some places that actually arrest people for skipping out on a restaurant bill for ANY REASON..

Girl in California.. tried to skip on a restaurant bill, arrested.. released in the middle of the night.. on foot.. She disappeared.

Point is.. The lady should have paid her bill or made arrangements with the manager before she lied about retrieving her wallet from the car and never coming back.. This actress needs to get over herself and be glad she did not get arrested.. This waiter could have easily called the cops and pressed charges on her.. He knew her name.. Randy Quaid just got arrested for what amounted to a dine and dash.

[SethBLiNK]

Randy Quaid got arrested for allegedly defrauding a hotel by using a credit card he knew to be no good to pay a $10,000 bill.

When you check into a hotel, they ask for a credit card. If he gave them a bad one, they would have known immediately. I don't know the details, but I know it was a one week stay and I'm sure the hotel had to have trusted him on many occassions to deliver a good credit card in order for him to run up a $10,000 bill and this seems to be a case where the deed was done intentionally.

Yes, Quaid got arrested. Of course he got arrested. It's $10,000.

You are comparing that to $13. It clearly was not intentional and while she was in their debt for 24 hours, she did make good on the debt.

Compared Quaid's crime to Adams's is crazy. Why not compare her to Roman Polanski? But this sort of logic is displayed throughout this thread. It's incredible.

[TequilaMockingbird]

13 bucks or 1300.. This actress is a grown Woman and should have made sure she had her wallet before she ordered... That is what adults do.. When she discovered she had no money she should have pleaded her case to Management... not the Wait Staff.. Instead she lied about retrieving wallet from Car and coming right back.

She broke the law.. you can write essays about her being a victim until the cows come home but... She broke the Law.. The waiter is a terd.. absolutely.. but he certainly could have been a bigger terd and called the cops to say "Jane Adams just left a restaurant without paying her bill".. apparently this Actress makes a habit of leaving her wallet at home when she dines out..

Stop excusing her illegal behaviour with the waiter's childish behaviour..

[panthermo]

on slashfood.com:

Mimi Smith said...
ok, so this is not the first time that Jane has skipped out on a check. . .I worked in a restaurant where she contested the charges on her credit card and then claimed that she was never even in the restaurant. . .Looks like she is a repeat offender and the waiter should never have been fired!

[SethBLiNK]

She asked her manager to take care of it. I'm sure she didn't tell him not to tip. I'm sure the manager didn't intentionally not tip. He probably made the call or had his assistant do it. Whoever took the call, probably didn't ask, "would you like to include a tip" or didn't say, "oh by the way, that doesn't include a tip" and that is how the great tragedy of the missed tip on a $13 tab came to be. I'm sure that Ms. Adams had no idea until she heard about the tweet that no tip had been included.

Tank... please read what I just read and ask yourself two questions:

1) Doesn't that make a lot more sense than assuming she forgot to pay or to tip for some malicious reason?

2) Considering that she made sure to get the bill paid and that she had no intention of stiffing the guy, doesn't she have a right to be angry that some guy is tweeting people and saying unflattering things about her?

[TequilaMockingbird]

Would you be so charitable to an anonymous citizen who elects to skip out on their breakfast bill? See it is COD at a restaurant.. You don't just get to send around the help to pay your bill the next day..

[SethBLiNK]

Thankyou Tequila, because I've never been to a restaurant and didn't understand the system of payments.

Actually if it was my restaurant and a person had a $13 meal and then claimed they didn't have their wallet with them I would force them to return the meal. I would get my two burliest waiters to hold them upside down and shake them till all the food was returned. Because I would not get into the restaurant business to build lasting relationships with patrons, I would be in it to make sure that that every morsal of food was paid for immediately.

[SethBLiNK]

PART I:

I just saw an interview with the waitor, linked here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQgVrZjx-Nw

It proves that Mr. Ingels is entirely responsible for his current predicament and that Ms. Adams is innocent of wrongdoing and is actually a victim here.

Before I go further, let me just say, I have no affiliation with Ms. Adams and am not nearly as much of a fan as Ingels claims to be.

Here's what we learn from the interview:

1) Adams, who was flying to NY to be on The View, made arrangements to get the bill paid before reading anything on Twitter. What kind of person, in the midst of preparing for a flight and for being on TV remembers to make arrangements to cover a debt of $13? A nice person, that's what kind of person.

2) Her manager called the restaurant and was told the bill was $13.44. Did the person who spoke to the manager ask if the manager would like to leave a tip? My guess is no, because no manager going to the trouble of covering a tab for a client would make the mistake of not leaving a tip, thus leaving the client open to this kind of gossip.

There are some on this blog who say that character is defined by what somebody does when nobody is looking. When nobody was looking, or tweeting, Jane Adams remembered a debt and took care of it.

[reevee]

Why people keep justifying an unpaid bill- that's just unacceptable- if you go to a restaurant you are suppose to have money or you call someone to bring it in before you leave. The rest is just unacceptable for a regular citizen why should be acceptable for a celebrity.

[SethBLiNK]

Nobody is justifying an unpaid bill. What I am justifying is a small ($13) and understandable (she had misplace her wallet) mistake, which Ms. Adams had rectified (asking a friend to make good on the tab).

When all this started (the tweeting, etc.) the bill had been paid. It was a day late and absent a tip, but considering how everything went down, there would be no reason for the waiter to suspect bad intentions. If his real issue was losing out on the $3 tip that he may have expected on the bill, there are better ways to address it.

The way he did address it shows a lack of understanding of the restaurant/guest relationship which eventually, and unfortunately, led to him being fired.

[SethBLiNK]

PART II

3) Did Ingels, who describes himself as a fan tweet that Adams, went to the trouble of making sure the bill got paid? No, he characterized her as running out on her check and not leaving a tip.

4) Adams upon learning that she was being publicly insulted, went to rectify the oversight and did it in a way that expressed her anger. Ingels said he chased after her to thank her, but he doesn't mention apologizing. He still does not realize that he is the one who fired the first shot.

5) If Adams complained to management, that is well within her rights. In fact, she was doing Barney Greengrass a favor by letting them know an employee was doing this.

6) Ingels descibes complementary tweets he made about celebs here, but if you read the Brand X article he also described one celeb as hungover and mentioned that another was braless.

And of course this issue has now gone to the Huffington Post where the great majority of people just take everything Ingels says at face value and very few look at the way the incident really played out and realize how much Adams is being forced to look like the villain here when she did nothing wrong.

[panthermo]

assuming everything happened as YOU think down to

"4) Adams upon learning that she was being publicly insulted, went to rectify the oversight and did it in a way that expressed her anger. Ingels said he chased after her to thank her, but he doesn't mention apologizing. He still does not realize that he is the one who fired the first shot."

Adams fired the first shot because Of course all could be avoided if the bill was paid in the first place.

5) If Adams complained to management, that is well within her rights. In fact, she was doing Barney Greengrass a favor by letting them know an employee was doing this.

AND gets him fired from a job he uses to feed his family So we feel sorry for her.Not

If everybody got fired in Hollywood for talking about star x then it would not be Hollywood

[SethBLiNK]

Here is the difference between Adams' first shot and Ingels's. Adams didn't intentionally leave her wallet at home. According to the waiter, she was highly embarrassed about not having it. Ingels intentionally tweeted about it. Not the worst crime in the world, but still, he was doing it for his own amusement without thinking of the ramifications to his employer or their customer.

And, she did not get him fired. She complained. He wasn't fired immediately. His employer should have just told him not to tweet. Instead, they followed him on Twitter and after seeing that he was doing it a lot, they fired him. A little sneaky of them, but I don't blame Adams for that.

[NetLoa]

As the saying goes, be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you'll meet them on the way down. And on the way up again, if you are lucky.

[TheLionOfLosAngeles]

Here is the first on camera interview with the waiter. He tells us exactly what happened!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQgVrZjx-Nw

[cdestef142us]

I love it, I bet she is finding a whole lot more stuff online about herself now than when she was scouring Twitter pages for mentions of her name. Now unfortunately, it is all negative and makes her look like a classless boob. If she had simply done the right thing in the first place she would not be dealing with all this now, but instead she tried to act like a big deal and get him fired for calling her on her BS and now every server in the country thinks she is lame. For a woman in her 40's, Jane Adams really needs to grow up.

[skunky93]

Thats not what happened.

[TallThinMan]

WELL HERE'S A LITTLE PRESENT I MADE FOR THIS TALENTED "CHEAP" ACTRESS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RgqlnV4AoE

[JustLeftOfRight]

I think they were both wrong. She for skipping out, not tipping and for being so vain or paranoid she has her assistant looks for internet stuff referencing her. He is wrong for not being a professional and publicly talking about his customers. They have a right to their privacy and just like other service professionals, doctors, attorneys, etc., he is obligated to keep details about his clients confidential. It's a shame he got fired for it without a warning or chance for rehabilitation, but he brought on himself since this was not a one time occurrence and he was in the habit of tattling on his famous customers.

[TankGirlz]

right to their privacy?? for stealing?? Trust me, if the tweet had been compliment­ary(gushin­g) she'd have no qualms about her "privacy"

[JustLeftOfRight]

Absolutely she's entitled in this context, regardless of what she did. Should a lawyer tweet about a celebrity he's representing, gossiping about stuff related or unrelated to the case? How about a doctor who knows a celebrity he treats is HIV positive and tweets that? You would say this is different because of the profession and the relationship they have with the client, but personally I as a customer of any professional, be it a doctor, attorney, contractor, lawn care professional or yes, waiter, expect them to behave as professionals and respect my privacy. If they announce stuff about me to millions of people you're darn right I'm going to come after them.

Another thing: how did this guy know Jane or an aide didn't come in to make payment to a manager before he tweeted? Really, at the point he tweeted he couldn't of and It's reckless behavior. He had a history of it, so F him. He'll learn from his mistake.

[TequilaMockingbird]

You know that skipping out on a restaurant bill is stealing don't you?

[SethBLiNK]

Has anybody here read the Brand X story?

Barney Greengrass is a business. It's somewhat pricey and it's located in Barney's which is a very pricey store. It depends on customers and like any pricey eatery in LA, some of those customers are actors and other well known people.

Ingals, an employee of the restaurant, was making it a practice to tweet to his friends about the customers. This one didn't tip. That one didn't wear a bra. Another one looked hung over.

If you are a restaurant manager or owner with any brains, you treat your customers like guests in your home. You do not tolerate having an employee tweet about them.

If you read the article, it is clear that Ingals was fired several weeks after the Adams incident and that she was just one person who had complained about it.

If this guy is so concerned about supporting his daughter, he should stop tweeting and look for a job that does not include serving the public, as he clearly does not understand the what it means to be a service professional.

[panthermo]

simple, have them sign a clause to not tweet. He was talking to his friends, not the world. Paying your staff $3.00/hr gives you what rights?

[SethBLiNK]

It gives you the right to fire them if they do something that hurts your business.