Celebs who won't sign certain items.

By Greg Drugan

Jun 27, 2018

Graphing in-person has it's ups and downs. When you see the person that you are after come toward you to sign, the feeling is pure joy. However, when they see a particular item that you have and they say "Sorry, I'm not signing that," usually makes your heart sink.

That has only happened to me a couple of times.

The most recent example was when Michael Keaton came to town. Many people waited at the airport for him and their were several different items to be signed. Michael was pretty cool about signing, however he kept skipping over Batman, Spiderman, Beatlejuice or any figures. After skipping over my Batman DVD about 3 times, I broke out my Birdman DVD. He skipped over that until I said "Michael, you should have won the Oscar for that role." He stopped, and said "What's your name?" and proceeded to personalize the DVD to me.

Another example was when I went for Garry Tallent from the E Street Band. He was signing at the merch table after a solo gig last year and was very nice and was signing everything. I got a couple of things signed but when I broke out "Tunnel Of Love" that already had Nils Lofgren on it he said "Sorry, I didn't play on that." I responded "Yes you did, you played on "Spare Parts." He said, "Sorry, I'm just mean like that. I'll sign anything else but not that." I was dumbfounded.

A third is Rich Robinson from the Black Crowes. I got him after a show a couple of years ago and I had an album flat to get signed. He said, "I'm not signing that." So I got out a mini acoustic guitar- these are well made replicas from Axe Heaven. He said "Nope." Finally I got out a Rolling Stone that I kept from the early '90s. I said "Look, this has my name and address on the label that I've kept for over 20 years. I'm a fan!" He said, "I guess that's ok" and proceeded to put his scribble on it.

So, the question is- Which celebrities don't sign certain items and what was the situation when they told you no.

Greg Drugan

I started collecting sports autographs in-person in the ‘90s when the Indians were rolling.  I switched to primarily music autographs back in 2014 when I became a concert photographer/reviewer. Musicians are much easier to get! Living between the Rock Hall and the Football HOF provides me ample opportunities to meet celebs.

All author posts

---

Sign in

Sign in to write a comment

Comments

Jeff Grimes

5 years, 5 months

Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum signed for probably 50 people on the railing. He signed and took pictures down one side and came to my side and I asked him to sign a picture I had just got signed moments before by his band mate Dave Haywood. He looked at it, said no, and then signed and took pictures with all the remaining people. People who saw it happen asked why he did that and I still don't know why. I had never seen him except on stage or in media.

Tim Henderson

6 years, 4 months

Cher will not sign in Blue sharpie no matter what the item!!