As part of my research into Twitter (ok I guess I’m hooked … for now), I set aside some time to monitor the the twitterchatter on our boy Vince “Shamwow” Shlomi and his recent biting/slapping incident. Due to my dilligence (get it?) I unearthed a stunning article that links this guy to (gasp) the Scientologists!!!
For real.
Of course I could just have checked my Google Reader but where’s the fun in that? This sordid tale is explained in detail in this article from Gawker, and in brief at the bottom along with my favorite Shamwow tweets:
Scientology: The Story Behind Scientology’s Slap Chop Scandal
Gawker has laid hands on the ShamWow guy’s 2004 lawsuit against the Church of Scientology, and it’s good! He accused the cult of infiltrating his food-chopper business and stealing it from him.ShamWow pitchman Vince Shlomi, who was arrested last month because a hooker who allegedly bit him on the tongue and he pummeled the shit out of her, became a Scientologist in 1982. According to his 2004 lawsuit against the cult (read the full lawsuit here), the Scientology was part of a conspiracy to steal his successful food-chopper business from him.
In the early 1990s, Shlomi started a business selling something called “the Chopper,” which appears to be a precursor to the Slap Chop of “you’re gonna love my nuts fame,” which he has more recently been selling in infomercials. According to the suit, he was making more than $1 million a year by setting up demonstrations in malls and using his preternatural pitchman skills to sell the Chopper. Sounds high, but we’ll believe it!
As the Chopper business flourished, Shlomi started bringing his coreligionists on board, teaching them how to hypnotically captivate mall-goers and sell them useless kitchen crap. He cut his Scientology salesmen—including two colleagues named Ron Chacon and Steve Harris—in to the tune of $1.50 for each Chopper sold. All told, Shlomi was employing more than 40 Scientologists in the enterprise.
In the late ’90s, Shlomi decided to pour the profits from the Chopper business into his movie, The Underground Comedy Movie. But his Scientologist employees grew jealous of his business success and his his Hollywood ambitions, and concocted a smear campaign against Shlomi and the movie, which the cult decried as “bad art” (which, let’s face it, it was).
Around the same time, Shlomi turned over day-to-day operations of the Chopper to Chacon and Harris, who allegedly promised to keep paying Shlomi $1.15 for every Chopper they sold. Shlomi claims they sold 1 million (again, sounds high!). But according to the complaint, Chacon and Harris pocketed all the money and stole the business.
Ever the good Scientologist, Shlomi tried to use the cult’s endless labrynth of beaureaucratic procedures—rather than a regular court—to get his money and business back from Harris and Chacon. In response, the complaint says, Harris and Chacon launched a cult-approved “black propaganda campaign” against Shlomi.
That campaign resulted, the complaint says, in Shlomi being hauled up before a Scientology court, which heard unspecified evidence from 22 people and branded him a criminal. Shlomi never heard the specific charges. When he appealed, he was labeled a “Type B declare,” Scientology-speak for “criminals with proven criminal records.” But Shlomi still believed in Scientology’s tenets, and went round and round for years trying to clear his name. Eventually he was allowed back into the cult’s good graces, but he got the run-around when he tried to use Scientology procedures to get his money and business back from Chacon and Harris. He kept at it until 2002, when he learned from a friend that the church had allegedly forced witnesses to denounced him in the kangaroo court. It was, Shlomi decided, a concerted effort to strip him of his business.
The suit was dismissed four months after it was filed. Shlomi left the church and started pitching ShamWows and Slap Chops on TV, got famous, and beat up a hooker. And that’s the story of how the phrase “you’re gonna love my nuts” started out with a Scientology front.
and now – the short version:ohnotheydidnt: You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll love his nuts.
terminally untalented simpleton starts stupid business, uses it to fund his incredibly shit comedy movie, is shocked when said incredibly shit comedy movie is universally trashed, gets his stupid business stolen from him by fellow Scientologists, is dragged before Kafkaesque “Scientology court” (wut) that labels him a “Type B” criminal (double wut) so he escapes the church and becomes a famous infomercial guy, which leads to the inevitable second act breakdown in which he loses his mind, picks up a prostitute, and savagely beats her. That’s pretty much the beginning of the Great American Novel right thSHORTER VERSION: ere, proving that much like Billy Mays, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Saul Bellow don’t have shit on Vince.
My favorite ShamWow Tweets:
- Is nobody going 2 defend Shamwow dude? Hooker was biting his tongue & wouldn’t let go! How is that ok? This is why bitches have 2 blackeyes!
- Link: The Story Behind Scientology’s Slap Chop Scandal – The full story behind Shamwow/Slap Chop pusher Vince… http://tumblr.com/xuv1ig07x
- So the ShamWow guy is a hooker-beatin’, ex-xenuphobic film hobbyist? My mind (quite unlike an Original ShamWow), is unable to absorb it all.
- Reading about that ShamWow guy battering some prosty in South Beach hotel room brawl. See mug shot: http://tr.im/i1aL
- So shamwow should hire me to be their new spokesman i promise to not punch hookers… I think
- So now that slapchop/shamwow Vince has been arrested for beating up a prostitute, will Billy Mays be on all the infomercials from now on?
- ShamWow Guy Busted for Allegedly Beating a Prostitute… However, prosecutors won’t press charges saying DNA was completely wiped clean.
- Does anyone else find a strange resemblance between the ShamWow guy and Moe from the Simpsons?http://twitpic.com/2mj93
- He’ll definitely need a Shamwow to clean up that mess
- just got spam email from the Shamwow company. Feel like physically assaulting a prostitute. strange.
- Next product shamwow guy comes up with is a hooker mouth guard
- http://is.gd/pxgX — ShamWow Guy ShamPows Hooker’s Face
- Did shamwow guy say “you’re gonna love my nuts” to the hooker that almost bit his damn tongue off? Idiot! LOL!
- New use for shamwow. Get it wet and you can throw a beatdown on hookers. Sorry hookers
- Who would win in a fight, Chris Brown or the ShamWow guy??
- I’m gettin one just to dry off wit when I get out the shower. Fuck a towel…..Shamwow
- Can i stop being afraid of shamwow imitators?
- “You’re gonna love my nuts,” says the inmate who has made the Shamwow guy his prison bitch.
- How many ‘ShamWow guy’ costumes will we see at this years halloween? Bonus points for the cannabilistic hooker accessory!
prosty??? LOL!
I <3 twttr & h8 it at the same time
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