Music

Fashion world fooled by fake Sisqó

by Jeremy Mersereau

You wouldn’t think anything was particularly out of the ordinary, seeing a relevancy-challenged turn-of-the-millennium R&B artist like Sisqó sitting in the front row of high-profile fashion shows, and that’s exactly how a fake Sisqó managed to fool the fashion cognoscenti at a number of New York Fashion Week shows.

Together with his “assistant,” the fake Sisqó sat in the front row at a number of NYFW events, including a presentation from Kanye West. Sporting bleached-blonde, close-cropped hair and a gold-trimmed caftan, no one raised an immaculately-groomed eyebrow when “Sisqó” was reportedly overheard bragging to attendees that he a) was indeed a well-known recording artist, and b) had been performing the previous night until 5am, neither of which ended up being true.

The fake Sisqó, whose real name is Gavin Barnes, only had his real identity revealed when he attempted to con his way onto a fashionista’s private jet and his passport revealed his true identity. That’s Gavin Barnes, not Mark Althavean Andrews, which the intrepid private jet gatekeepers astutely noticed, as well as the fact that Barnes was born in 1986, which would make him 13 when “The Thong Song” first came out.

Barnes denied intentionally posing as the purveyor of the Thong Song, telling Page Six that “I never said I was Sisqó. People thought I was him, and that wasn’t cool.” Hm, pretty rock-solid defense. Sisqó’s real manager Jeff Allen said he had “no idea who this guy is,” but that Barnes’ deception was “flattering.”

How’s the real Sisqó been doing since his early-00s heyday, you ask? Well, he was on Celebrity Wife Swap in 2013, so…*in Larry David voice* “pretty, pretttty good.”

[H/T Page Six]