How A-list Celebrity Assistants Work Miracles
Celebrity headhunter Brian Daniel appears in The Hollywood Reporter. This article has been modified for brevity.
For some A-list assistants, securing the right Mother’s Day gift for the boss’ mom can be a daunting challenge. When flowers or five-star spa days won’t cut it, what does one get for the client whose gifting budget knows no bounds?
“Assistants move mountains for a living, but some things can’t be solved with money,” not even for Mother’s Day, The Celebrity Personal Assistant Network founder and director Brian Daniel tells The Hollywood Reporter.
His headhunting service pairs high-net-worth families — think royalty and celebrities — with service staff and runs a private concierge for top-tier clients. “If it were that easy, then everyone could just throw money at a problem, but things are never that easy, especially in Hollywood.”
The founder and director of Celebrity PA Network recalls one elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-esque plan — during his days as a personal assistant — to secure a private Mother’s Day meet-and-greet with a music industry icon for his then-boss’ mom. “She had always dreamed of meeting a particular (old-school) Grammy winner. It was especially difficult to pull this off because this particular A-lister isn’t that fond of doing private appearances, even for a fee,” he shares.
The elaborate plan took two weeks of “pulling favors to circumvent her agents so I could find an ‘in.’ I found out that the ‘gatekeeper’ was very fond of old typewriters and was an avid collector. That made me remember a friend from acting class (at the time) who had a storage unit full of junk,” including props from Wizard of Oz, rare books, phonographs and one “exceptionally rare” antique typewriter.
“He didn’t really want to part with it; he didn’t need rent money at that moment, I suppose. To motivate him, I offered him an autographed David Bowie album. I knew it would be his Achilles’ heel. I didn’t particularly want the album anyway, and I had it because someone gave it to me as collateral for a loan because he needed to pay rent — another actor from acting class. I kept the record because I never got paid back, and that guy moved back to Arkansas or wherever he was from.”
Leverage secured, Daniel hatched a plan to “accidentally on purpose” interrupt a coffee meeting between his friend and the gatekeeper. “When we were all leaving and walking into the parking lot, I opened my car trunk and said to my friend, ‘Hey, man, look at this piece of junk that I just got at a yard sale. Maybe this thing is worth some money.” The ‘gatekeeper’ looked at it and turned pale.” Naturally, the gatekeeper agreed to the meet and greet.
“We went to the star’s mega-mansion because she didn’t want to go out in public. We were only supposed to be there, literally, for five minutes — that was the deal,” recalls Daniel. “Turns out, the boss’s mom and the star really hit it off and were like old giddy high school friends. The star made us all tea, and we were there for over an hour. The celebrity showed us around, and her walls were like a monument to rock n roll history. There were tons of awards and photos of her with other legends on the walls. She told us a lot of great stories. The memories. Priceless.
More recently, Daniel helped an assistant in his network fulfill an A-list meeting-and-greet.
“I have a private VIP concierge service that is only for my clients who have made placements through my agency. The assistant’s boss’ wife (who is also a mom) wanted to meet an unnamed A-list star, and the boss was trying to make it happen for Mother’s Day.
In this case, the star does personal/private appearances, but it costs $1 million. Needless to say, that was out of the question. The wife I was trying to help does come from ‘money,’ but not that kind of crazy-insane-ridiculous money where you could just throw away $1M on a whim,” he says.
“Coincidentally, I know that star’s voice coach,” explains Daniel. “I called [them] and asked if there was some way to make a meet and greet happen. He was very reluctant because, as you know, these business relationships with big stars are very ‘fragile,’ and you can get yourself in serious trouble if it’s found that you were giving someone access and ‘abusing’ your professional relationship — especially in this situation because the star charges an appearance fee of $1 million.”
Daniel’s creative workaround? Enlisting the boss’ wife to play “assistant” to the voice coach at the precise time that the star showed up for their vocal lessons. “I suggested the following: ‘What if,’ I said, ‘the wife was your ‘assistant,’ and she just happened to be getting something out of the trunk of your car for you? He thought about it for a day, and then he called me back and said he would do it. The following week, it happened.”
Parked a half-block away from the voice studio with the boss, Daniel kept a close eye for the make and model of the star’s car. “The talent usually arrives about five minutes early and waits in their car because they don’t walk into the studio until they see the previous student walk out. When I saw the star pull up, I phoned the wife (the fake assistant), for her to be on standby and she waited on the phone with me in real time.
When the celebrity started walking toward the door of the studio, I said to the wife, ‘NOW!’ She walked out of the studio (which had been rehearsed beforehand for timing) with the car's trunk key in hand, she opened the trunk and grabbed a backpack, turned around, and WHAM — the meet happened.”
Though the conditions of the unofficial meet-and-greet included no autographs or selfies, Daniel “did get the whole thing on video from a distance with the express condition that it was only for the family and never, ever to be shown in public or put on the internet.”
The client paid “an undisclosed sum as a ‘success fee,'” while the voice coach went home with a “vintage bottle of Dom Perignon for the favor,” adds Daniel.
“Assistants move mountains for a living, but some things can’t be solved with money,” not even for Mother’s Day, The Celebrity Personal Assistant Network founder and director Brian Daniel tells The Hollywood Reporter.
His headhunting service pairs high-net-worth families — think royalty and celebrities — with service staff and runs a private concierge for top-tier clients. “If it were that easy, then everyone could just throw money at a problem, but things are never that easy, especially in Hollywood.”
The founder and director of Celebrity PA Network recalls one elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-esque plan — during his days as a personal assistant — to secure a private Mother’s Day meet-and-greet with a music industry icon for his then-boss’ mom. “She had always dreamed of meeting a particular (old-school) Grammy winner. It was especially difficult to pull this off because this particular A-lister isn’t that fond of doing private appearances, even for a fee,” he shares.
The elaborate plan took two weeks of “pulling favors to circumvent her agents so I could find an ‘in.’ I found out that the ‘gatekeeper’ was very fond of old typewriters and was an avid collector. That made me remember a friend from acting class (at the time) who had a storage unit full of junk,” including props from Wizard of Oz, rare books, phonographs and one “exceptionally rare” antique typewriter.
“He didn’t really want to part with it; he didn’t need rent money at that moment, I suppose. To motivate him, I offered him an autographed David Bowie album. I knew it would be his Achilles’ heel. I didn’t particularly want the album anyway, and I had it because someone gave it to me as collateral for a loan because he needed to pay rent — another actor from acting class. I kept the record because I never got paid back, and that guy moved back to Arkansas or wherever he was from.”
Leverage secured, Daniel hatched a plan to “accidentally on purpose” interrupt a coffee meeting between his friend and the gatekeeper. “When we were all leaving and walking into the parking lot, I opened my car trunk and said to my friend, ‘Hey, man, look at this piece of junk that I just got at a yard sale. Maybe this thing is worth some money.” The ‘gatekeeper’ looked at it and turned pale.” Naturally, the gatekeeper agreed to the meet and greet.
“We went to the star’s mega-mansion because she didn’t want to go out in public. We were only supposed to be there, literally, for five minutes — that was the deal,” recalls Daniel. “Turns out, the boss’s mom and the star really hit it off and were like old giddy high school friends. The star made us all tea, and we were there for over an hour. The celebrity showed us around, and her walls were like a monument to rock n roll history. There were tons of awards and photos of her with other legends on the walls. She told us a lot of great stories. The memories. Priceless.
More recently, Daniel helped an assistant in his network fulfill an A-list meeting-and-greet.
“I have a private VIP concierge service that is only for my clients who have made placements through my agency. The assistant’s boss’ wife (who is also a mom) wanted to meet an unnamed A-list star, and the boss was trying to make it happen for Mother’s Day.
In this case, the star does personal/private appearances, but it costs $1 million. Needless to say, that was out of the question. The wife I was trying to help does come from ‘money,’ but not that kind of crazy-insane-ridiculous money where you could just throw away $1M on a whim,” he says.
“Coincidentally, I know that star’s voice coach,” explains Daniel. “I called [them] and asked if there was some way to make a meet and greet happen. He was very reluctant because, as you know, these business relationships with big stars are very ‘fragile,’ and you can get yourself in serious trouble if it’s found that you were giving someone access and ‘abusing’ your professional relationship — especially in this situation because the star charges an appearance fee of $1 million.”
Daniel’s creative workaround? Enlisting the boss’ wife to play “assistant” to the voice coach at the precise time that the star showed up for their vocal lessons. “I suggested the following: ‘What if,’ I said, ‘the wife was your ‘assistant,’ and she just happened to be getting something out of the trunk of your car for you? He thought about it for a day, and then he called me back and said he would do it. The following week, it happened.”
Parked a half-block away from the voice studio with the boss, Daniel kept a close eye for the make and model of the star’s car. “The talent usually arrives about five minutes early and waits in their car because they don’t walk into the studio until they see the previous student walk out. When I saw the star pull up, I phoned the wife (the fake assistant), for her to be on standby and she waited on the phone with me in real time.
When the celebrity started walking toward the door of the studio, I said to the wife, ‘NOW!’ She walked out of the studio (which had been rehearsed beforehand for timing) with the car's trunk key in hand, she opened the trunk and grabbed a backpack, turned around, and WHAM — the meet happened.”
Though the conditions of the unofficial meet-and-greet included no autographs or selfies, Daniel “did get the whole thing on video from a distance with the express condition that it was only for the family and never, ever to be shown in public or put on the internet.”
The client paid “an undisclosed sum as a ‘success fee,'” while the voice coach went home with a “vintage bottle of Dom Perignon for the favor,” adds Daniel.
This article appeared in The Hollywood Reporter in 2025.
