Actress Amber Rose Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Portlandia) recently played a high-profile prank on R&B singer Tyrese Gibson.
According to Tamblyn, Tyrese pulled her e-mail address from a “cc’d” list (used when sending the same message to multiple people) thinking that she was actually Amber Rose, Kanye West’s ex-girlfriend and current fiancee of rapper Wiz Khalifa. He then e-mailed Tamblyn, and asked her if she wanted to collaborate on some songs.
Instead of correcting his mistake, Tamblyn sent Tyrese four impromptu rap demos she created on her iPhone.
It wasn’t until after she sent the first two audio clips that Tyrese suspected she was an imposter, saying “That song was not it…. Not even remotely…. Just keepin it real,” and asking Amber “What u on?” insinuating that she’s got to be on drugs.
The actress finally fessed up in her seventh e-mail, singing her full name — Amber Rose Tamblyn — after the Baby Boy actor called her song titled “Contraception Matters” “trash,” saying “Sorry…at this point I don’t even believe this is Amber…I’m cool. Good luck on your career…. One.”
Afterward, Tamblyn sent their e-mail exchanges to some friends — whom in turn helped them go viral.
She prefaced the message by saying, “I’ve never met Tyrese before. He pulled my email addy from that cc list and emailed me wanting to work on an album together. So I recorded my demos on my iPhone and sent them to him. I guess you could call them Awareness Raps? I am the Hilary Clinton of Ghostface Killahs.”
Although Tamblyn is receiving a lot of positive feedback following this incident, Tyrese seems convinced that this was all a stunt to boost Tamblyn’s career. “Did you really go public with this? Corny as f**k …. Not cool…. Not even remotely…. I hope this does wonders for your career,” he said in an e-mail to her.
Shia Labeouf contacted Tamblyn in hopes of doing animated shorts of each demo, and Dan the Automator also wants to get involved and do a whole EP. Meanwhile, Questlove has asked her publicist if she’d perform them on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Intentional or not, Tyrese was right about one thing — definite career booster.