Onch MovementChris Crocker has landed.
As I told you on Friday, the 19-year-old better known as the “Leave Britney Alone” guy on YouTube was coming to Hollywood for the upcoming opening of World of Wonder’s Just Britney art show.
Well, he’s here now. Turns out that the show is just one part of his trip.
He was apparently flown to L.A. by the Onch Movement jewelry company because he's one of their—for lack of a better term—celebrity spokesmodels.
I just got off the phone with Onch (yes, she only goes by one name). The 22-year-old Los Angeles native says she and Crocker started working together before he hit it big with his Britney video.
“Chris sent me an email in the middle of last year asking if he could have some of my jewelry to promote with his stuff on the Internet,” Onch says. “I would get so many emails like that through MySpace and stuff that I just saw him as another kid with 10,000 friends. I was like sorry, maybe you could pay for half of it.”
But that eventually changed when Onch reached out to Crocker. Why? Because she became a fan of his work on MySpace and YouTube. What she hadn't realized was that Crocker was the same guy she blew off just months before. “I got hooked on his videos,” Onch says. “I said, ‘I am going to contact this guy, because he could model for me.' ”
No surprise, but Crocker jumped on board. About two weeks later, “Leave Britney Alone” became an Internet phenomenon, with a mind-blowing 8 million hits. Within days, Onch arranged Crocker’s trip to Hollywood from his home in Tennessee, where he lives in his grandparents’ basement.
Later this week, in addition to the Just Britney opening, Crocker will be doing a round of press to promote Onch, a collection of kitschy pieces using a mix of materials, including razor blades, dice and a variety of candies encased in resin.
But first, Crocker had some sightseeing to do. Within no time of landing here, Crocker hit West Hollywood gay bar Rage and had dinner at celeb-favorite restaurants Koi and Mr. Chow.