"Update - March 19th: The woman who reportedly had an affair with Sandra Bullock's husband Jesse James has another bombshell to drop -- a full scale Nazi photo shoot. TMZ has obtained the shocking photos of Michelle McGee, which were taken almost a year ago. www.TMZ.com"
Just ask Snoop, Dr. Dre or even me, for that matter -- you can take the boy outta Long Beach but you can't take Long Beach outta the boy. One of that town's fine sons has proven that adage once again.
Jesse James, poseur biker, ersatz "tough guy," reality show celebrity and motorcycle-building's supposed bad boy, has admitted cheating on his wife, Academy Award-winning actress Sandra Bullock. Reportedly she's moved out of their home and James now finds himself apologizing to Bullock and their kids through the media (James has three children from two previous wives, none with Bullock).
James tells People Magazine "I deserve everything bad that is coming my way" and he exhibited "poor judgment." Can't wait to see that divorce settlement...
Who's the lucky girl? InTouch Weekly today announced an "exclusive" interview with the alleged mistress, Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, who calls herself "the hottest busty tattoo and fetish model" around. The "tattoo model" can be seen on a website called SoCalGlamourGirls.com, where fans of McGee can view her pictures or even speak to her live on a webcam. Can't wait for the Tiger-like chorus line of female fame-seekers claiming Jesse's tired manhood as their own to hit the media.
What an idiot, what a maroon, what a John Edwards in a t-shirt and without the blow-dry. James' wife is on top of the world for her part in the film "The Blind Side," won Best Actress honors at both the Golden Globes and Oscars this year and has a near-guaranteed future of larger and larger paychecks and, most especially, respect.
Yet apparently James considered this the perfect time to betray her.
I've always liked Bullock, 46, as a comic actress. Her movies make a lot of money, which no doubt contributed to her victories this year in the Globes and Academy Awards. The industry respects anyone who brings in the big dough, and Bullock has always done that. Bullock is highly-educated, urbane and talented. Born in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, to a German opera singer and a voice teacher, she grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister.
James, 40, is something else entirely. He's a So Cal boy with a background as a bodyguard for heavy-metal music groups including Danzig, Slayer and Soundgarden. In 1992 James opened a motorcycle custom shop in his mom's house and it thrived. James' designs and ideas were edgy and became popular.
The company grew quickly and James now owns several racing-oriented and vehicle customization companies, and a hamburger stand near his Long Beach shop (where James and Bullock breakfasted the morning after the Oscars). His branded products (shirts, hats, etc, the usual) are sold worldwide.
He's even appeared in an ad for T-Mobile's Google cell phone with Whoopi Goldberg and Phil Jackson. His marriage to Bullock propelled him into big time Hollywood.
But now James' actions are just plain stupid and self-destructive. Let's go beyond why Bullock hooked-up with this guy in the first place, and for the sake of argument assume the marriage, which occurred in July, 2005 was happy and strong, at least in its early days.
What led to James' inability to keep his zipper up? Was Bullock gone on-location too often from their Long Beach, CA home? Certainly Jesse could have joined her on-set anywhere in the world whenever he (or she) would have liked. Could James not stomach scenes where Bullock was close with other men? If their marriage was as strong as they both claimed, Jesse would have seen the green of dollar signs and not jealousy whenever Bullock flirted with or kissed another man on-screen. Or maybe Bullock was simply making way more money than James' ego could stand.
We've criticized James in the past for his use of Nazi symbology on his t-shirts and motorcycle designs and his violent pseudo-biker image aimed directly at young adult and teenage males. The media has played along, nothing but culpable in promoting James' renegade image exampled in the recent breathless national reports about the return of James' pit bull after a two week disappearance to his starring in (and producing) cable TV reality shows, including one called "Jesse James is a Dead Man".
I'd bet James agreed with that show's title as soon as Bullock found out about his screwing around.
Some reports now have James' mutt not missing, but bunking at the home of Jesse's paramour. Another rumored "missing dog report" this past weekend raised eyebrows when the pooch was quickly returned by a friend of James, possibly the same woman who "found" the dog the first time it went missing two weeks ago.
In the meantime, James' relationship with Bullock opened a vast new world of money-making opportunities for him, and more power to him.
Getting his product lines into major stores and catalogues and on websites worldwide was probably a lot easier when Bullock joined him in business meetings. For instance, Jack Ryan, designer of the Barbie doll and a major Mattel Toy executive, married Zsa Zsa Gabor, he told friends, so that when he brought clients home to dinner, the hostess was the legendary Zsa Zsa. Impressive, even by Hollywood standards.
Imagine bringing home the clothing buyers from Federated Department Stores for a quick dinner and the person setting the table is Sandra Bullock.
While James has absolutely benefited from his marriage to Bullock, garnering a kind of begrudging, weird and unnatural air of respectability, Bullock has so far managed to remain above Jesse's reputation and keep her own fun and sexy image.
I can imagine Jesse was welcomed to Hollywood by a lot of the male execs in the business. Many Hollywood-types fancy themselves "rebels" and having someone like James in their midst, as sort of a bad-boy boy-toy, helps them feel even rougher and tougher.
Running along Mulholland Drive to the Rock Store on a Sunday afternoon on some sort of rocket-ship bike or chopper motorcycle is de rigueur for the younger and middle-age Hollywood set, and counting someone like Jesse among your group could raise your own standing in the community. He might not be Arnold, nor even Jay (both of whom frequent Mulholland on cars and bikes) but Jesse lends a special phony rough-and-tumble credence to your group. These are the bikers known derisively as Rubbies; Rich Urban Bikers. The type who can actually afford Ducatis.
I've covered the custom motorcycle business since the mid-'70s, since the hey-day of the classic California chopper. In the Long Beach/Compton/Paramount area, my photographer and I lived and worked with serious heavy bikers from clubs like the Hessians, Mongols and of course Hells Angels. Many of these guys had respect for James' custom bike work during his early years, the mid-90s, but as time went on, James became a media sideshow and an outcast to those truly in "the life."
James maintained last year to have broken a Land Speed Record at Bonneville Salt Flats with a hydrogen-powered car, but journalists who have covered the salt for decades say James' claim is a fraud (http://www.landspeedproductions.biz/?s=jesse+james).
And though James says he's found direct lineage to the "original" western outlaw Jesse James, the James family foundation which protects and licenses the American icon's name and image, says Long Beach's Jesse James has absolutely no connection with the real one. He's even been accused of stealing union logos to make his own anti-union statements and more (http://thecarnut.typepad.com/steve_parker_the_car_nut_/2008/01/motorcycle-buil.html).
Clearly nothing is enough for Jesse James. His carefully researched and cultivated audience of young males no doubt think Bullock is hot and she would be more than enough for the "average" man, but their hero Jesse is apparently not satisfied with a gorgeous Oscar-winning movie star; he got greedy and needed more, and, being from Long Beach, he took it.
(Note - We've removed a political/racial reference made to the heavy-metal groups for which James served as as a bodyguard; it was not meant to be offensive).