Sure, it’s good to be Rob Gronkowski. But even Gronk can get tired of the way people perceive him.
Take for example a night out at Prime One Twelve Steakhouse in Miami, where a woman from Boston interrupted his private dinner with friends and family.
The exchange, which Devin Friedman detailed in his GQ cover story on the New England Patriots tight end, started when the woman disregarded the curtain separating Gronk’s table from the rest of the restaurant and asked to take a picture with him. Mike Katz, Gronkowski’s agent, tried to get the woman to give Gronk some privacy, but it wasn’t easy.
“Hey, listen, it’s my birthday and I told my friend Rob that for my birthday I don’t want him to leave the table,” Katz said, via GQ. “Tonight’s a special night.”
“Well it’s my birthday, too,” the woman says. “Come on, I’m from Boston. I’m a fan.”
“I’m sorry,” Katz says. “But my birthday wins.”
“No, my f—– birthday wins. I’m from Boston, you know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m takin’ this home,” she says. “You’re an a——, Gronk, and I’m taking this home to Boston.”
Many celebrities and athletes have to deal with exchanges like these, but Friedman saw and wrote about how much of a toll this incident took on Gronk.
“My pet peeves are people touching me a lot,” Gronkowski told GQ afterward. “Random dudes grabbing me and slapping me across the back. They’re not doing it on purpose, but it’s like they forget I’m a person. But you can’t do anything about it. What are you going to do?
“People misunderstand who I truly am. Truly who I am. If I go somewhere, people just think I’m a party boy 24/7. Like, it’s a Monday night and I walk into a restaurant and people start handing me shots. I’m like, ‘Yo, I’m in season right now. I just played a game, I can hardly walk.’ ”
Yes, it’s good to be Gronk, but he needs his space, too.
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
