Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: Bob Pivoroff; The Man Who Has A Pic With Your Fav Celeb

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

We chat to Bob Pivoroff, the American man who hunts down celebrities for a living and has photos with Kanye, Trump, Cobain etc. etc.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a bonus podcast from Jono and Ben on The Hits. We're excited about this. A man who pretty much is a professional tracker down of celebrities. I don't know if there's an actual job title. I don't think there is, but he gets photos himself with celebrities. We've been talking for 30 years, got thousands and thousands of photos. Yeah, Bob Piver of you. You are the celebrity photo hunter. So how long have you been doing this? I'd say around, probably about 33 years, around 89. Jeez, you're committed.

You're committed. So, you know, just... Yeah, yeah, very much. There is an endless list of A-listers that you've had photos with. Who, just rattle off some names for us. Okay, just like current or old or either way. Well, that's the thing. You've got so many, Okay, let's go categories.

Let's go presidents. Oh, yeah. It's like seven living presidents. So it's like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and George Bush Sr. and Jr., Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford. You had to get them both Biden quickly, didn't you? Yeah, currently. It's a race to the finish line on that one

okay let's go rock stars like rock stars pop stars oh a lot um you know anywhere like

from like a couple of the Beatles like Ringo and McCartney and then you know Rolling Stones and The Who and Zeppelin

and Motley Crue Def Leppard ACDC um Guns N' Roses. But you said pop, like Rihanna, Katy Perry. I saw you had a photo with Post Malone, Kurt Cobain, Eminem.

You've got The Rock. Post Malone, very friendly. Oh, it's just incredible. We could list names all day. So how do you track these celebrities down? Do you go to a concert, to an event with the hope of getting a photo? Sometimes it is outside of shows. And other times it's like doing your own detective work,

like find them at hotels or their flight coming in or things like that. And even before the internet, I was having to do that. Now with the internet, it makes it a lot easier to track them down. It must be so time consuming. What's the longest period of time you've waited for a photo with a celebrity? Sometimes, you know, there's times it's an hour or two. And another time you could be waiting 10 hours. You could be waiting all day long.

Very time consuming. Do you have a job as well? Yeah. How does that work? Yeah. Yeah, no, I do. Well, I did this for my full-time income for years you know like uh selling memorabilia and autograph memorabilia back to having a regular

job for about the last 15 years so now i do it part-time with work but yeah i made a good living at it for about 15 20 years oh so that was the drive you would take like records and movie posters get them signed and then sell them yes Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Would any celebrities say no to an autograph or a photo? Sometimes, sometimes. Yeah, I mean, some have been very difficult, like Bob Dylan's very difficult, Madonna, Stevie Nicks very hard, Taylor Swift's hard. Well, because imagine a photo would probably be a little different than an autograph,

because they might be going, oh, hang on, you might be selling this in the future. The photo's generally easier, yeah, because they don't see any value with it. But nowadays, I'd say with social media, people taking selfies, that's become more popular in general, you know, because of all the selfies.

You say, like, Taylor Swift, Madonna very hard. Is that because you can't get close to them or they won't do photos? Well, I know Taylor was nice earlier on. I know Madonna, no, I mean, I've gotten right out to Madonna. I got up to her a bunch of times and I just couldn't get her. She just ignores her. She doesn't want to do anything. Let's rattle off the nicest celebrity you've come in contact with.

I'd say Matt Damon, extremely nice. John Travolta. A lot of heavy metal and names are nice. A lot of hip-hop names are nice, you know, like when I met them. Yeah, Snoop Dogg. You've met Snoop Dogg. Yeah, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Eminem. Yeah, both of them.

Snoop was very friendly. Yeah, real nice. What do you talk to them about? I usually have a brief moment. It might be a minute or a few minutes. If there's time, you might ask them about their music or how the tour is going. But a lot of times it's Harry.

It's a rush situation. What is incredible, not only the hundreds of celebrities you have photos with, but you look back and then sadly some of them are no longer with us you know olivia newton john meet live kirk cobain you know that's real moments in time yeah absolutely i mean with cobain it was probably was it november and he he passed in april as i met him about a half a year before he died wow is there one celebrity you want a photo with but you just can't get him you're golden goose um i've had like uh say bad luck with i've seen like he's

friendly but i couldn't get team brad pitt a few times but he's not he's not rude i just just had bad bad luck you know brad pitt or tom cruise both of them are nice but i just couldn't get them so what who was the last uh big celebrity that you managed to get a photo with? Say the last, this is funny. I was there over the last week or two. This is funny. Just saw Billy Corgan this past weekend. Smashing Pumpkins?

Smashing Pumpkins. He's notorious for being difficult, and he wouldn't do anything. He doesn't seem like a let's have a selfie sort of guy. Yeah, he's not very friendly, not at all. And he just turned us down this past week. How many celebrity photos have you got? It's probably a low number, might be like 20,000. That's probably a low number.

Really? So what do you do with them all? Obviously, you've got them. I stopped doing photo albums about 20 years ago. Yeah, the 10,000 mark. This is wild. Yeah, and then it's a mix. Some are on the computer.

Ever since I went digital about 15 years ago, like 07, phone for the last few years stored on there, and I try to back them up on Facebook or the computer. Do they recognize you now, some of the celebrities? Occasionally. Occasionally, I've had it. Like Guns N' Roses is my favorite band. A few of them, not Axl, but a few of the artists

that recognize me, like Slash and Dove, they start remembering your face. You've met them so many times. But I still make trips to LA or New York and do this. Like fly a few hours to LA and sometimes go for award shows. Yeah, I'll look at

trying to do that. So you would have spent thousands of dollars over the years on traveling around to make some liberties? Yeah, absolutely. That's probably a low estimate. Wow, that's incredible. Is this you till you die, Bob? You're going to be snapping up a storm?

Oh, probably. I got my teenage son into it too, and he's been doing it for over 10 years. He's traveled the U.S. with me doing the same thing too. Has anyone come up to you now that you're famous to get a photo with you? That's a funny question. Yes, but in a different way.

But yeah, occasionally we've been out, say, in L.A., and there's people that do the same thing. They ask me for a photo. It's kind of funny. You'd be the goat. No one is going to beat you with 30,000 celebrity photos. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Do the celebrities ever give you anything? Do they ever give you any of their memorabilia? Not so much memorabilia, but I've gotten into it. Sometimes taking us into shows, you know, or sometimes I get to sit and hang out with them.

I occasionally sit with them at the bar for a drink, maybe for an hour or two, you know. But, I mean, I had like Willie Nelson give us t-shirts

or iced tea, take us in the show with him. You know, we had things like that. Wow. So if I wanted to get a photo with my

favorite celebrity, I could potentially do that if I just dedicated enough time to it? Yeah, very possible. In general, most of them are nice. I mean, you know, the majority is not awesome. But, yeah, it's very possible with the right amount of waiting and the right investigating. Oh, well, this has been really interesting.

Do you know we actually were in America once and we sent Ben over. Do you remember the girl who said, cash me outside on Dr. Phil? Cash me outside. How about that? Yeah, I haven't met her, but I know who she is. Oh, you've had a photo with her? Yeah. We bullied Ben into going over and getting a photo with her.

We used to do a radio show with Sharon, and Sharon was like, oh, I haven't got any makeup on. You need to go over. And I'm like, oh, this is a bad look for me. And yeah, we is a bad look for me. And, yeah. We got a photo. We got a photo. But she didn't look as into it as maybe I was.

Oh, really? Not as thrilled? Ironically, she was outside at the time. So he catched her outside. How about that? How about that? That's funny. Good on you, mate.

Lovely talking with you. Nice meeting with you. It's a pleasure. Yeah, keep up the good work. All right. Thank you for having me. I appreciate funny. Good on you, mate. Lovely talking with you. Nice meeting with you. It's a pleasure. Yeah, keep up the good work. Alright, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. My pleasure.