
FERGIE, HER HUMPS Ferg (Photo: Getty Images)
Last night, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a lot of very pretty people gathered to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Wilhelmina Models, the agency featured in literally-named VH1 reality show The Agency. Among said pretty people were Halle Berry's BD, model Gabriel Aubrey; Billy Joel's wife, Katie Lee Joel; and Lance Bass.
Sean William Scott (still looking like Stiffler), race car driver Jeff Gordon, and Grey's Anatomy's Justin Chambers were also in attendance, but we never actually saw them because they were deep in a roped-off VIP section. Guess who's also a VIP these days: Page Six's Richard Johnson! As our efforts to loiter around the entrance to the VIP were none too appreciated by the battalion of clipboard-wielding VIP security guards, we were forced to leave before we could ask RiJo about his buddy> Joe Francis.
Beneath the glitz and glamor and the four-song set from Fergie, though, was the unmistakable waft of job-induced schadenfreude. You see, while most of the partygoers were working models with agency representation, many of the bartenders and food servers were aspiring models who weren't exactly pleased that their current station in life had them offering up mixed drinks to the very people whose jobs they coveted. An ironic twist on the classic strife between the help and the monied, to be sure. "I'm just doing this to get paid, you know?" a statuesque 19-year-old recent Texas transplant named Aisha told me as she offered up a tray of salmon canapes told. Aren't we all.