The Gov's 'Hannah Montana' freebies
State senator who got him in says it was 'torture' to sit with '20,000 screaming 11-year-olds'
It was the hottest ticket in town, with parents paying as much as $300 a seat or more to get their kids in to see teen queen Miley Cyrus at Allstate Arena.
But not Gov. Blagojevich. The governor scored free tickets for himself, his wife, Patti, and their two kids.
(Scott Stewart/Sun-Times)
Most of the lucky few who got in had to brave long lines, or scour the Internet, or turn to scalpers to be able to see the star of the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" in concert Dec. 8 in Rosemont.
No lines for the Blagojeviches, though, for what one Allstate Arena representative calls the venue's "hottest ticket in 20 years." The governor and his family even got to go backstage.
They went courtesy of state Sen. James DeLeo, a Chicago Democrat who's one of the governor's closest political allies.
DeLeo has long had ties with the Stephens family, whose patriarch, Don Stephens, founded Rosemont. The Stephens family still runs the suburb, which owns and operates Allstate Arena.
"I call and say, 'I need six or eight or 10; what do you have?' " DeLeo recalls of his conversation with the ticket offices.
He says he was told: "Come over and buy them."
He says he got there 10 minutes before tickets went on sale and found himself "seven-deep in line."
"The Allstate Arena is a nine-iron from my house," the senator says. "I see every employee -- from the Zamboni driver to the guy my wife hires to put the Christmas lights on the house. It's my neighborhood."
DeLeo says he got 12 Cyrus tickets for face value -- $65 apiece -- and paid for them out of his own pocket.
"I'm a rich legislator," he says. "I buy my Cub tickets. I buy my stuff out of my own money."
These weren't the much-coveted floor tickets, he says, but the "first set of tickets off the ice," to the side of the stage.
DeLeo took his 10-year-old daughter.
And even though parents of many young Cyrus/Montana fans complained they were shut out of getting tickets, DeLeo wants to make clear the show was no fun at all, at least not for him.
"I was there under duress, OK?" DeLeo says. "There were 20,000 screaming 11-year-olds. I'd never do it again. Not that I don't love my daughter, but, oh, my god, it was torture."
Generally, Illinois' Gift Ban Act bars state officials from accepting freebies worth more than $100 -- except in cases of "personal friendship."
DeLeo says he has had a long friendship with the Blagojeviches, that he went to their "engagement party" and knew the governor and his wife independently before they married.
The governor's office didn't want to comment about the Blagojeviches' concertgoing, other than to confirm they went as DeLeo's guests.
But Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch did add in an e-mail: "It is not a violation of the Gift Ban Act."
Still, the governor getting his family in to see Miley Cyrus doesn't sit well with Wendy Gustafson, a Carol Stream mom.
"Really, what makes him that much more different than the rest of us?" says Gustafson, who paid $600 for two tickets to the Cyrus show. "It doesn't seem right at all."
Teen queen Cyrus, by the way, is coming back to Chicago on Jan. 14, this time to the United Center. Tickets went on sale Saturday and quickly sold out. Will the Blagojeviches be going? "Haven't heard any plans to go to another concert," says Rausch.
Dave McKinney