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Celine Dion, second from right, with Richard Dunn, his wife Natasha and their daughter Bailey at the Colosseum on Friday, July 4, 2014, at Caesars Palace.
By Robin Leach (contact)
Monday, Oct. 6, 2014 | 6:31 p.m.
Richard Dunn
Celine Dion
Celine Dion meets Richard Dunn
Richard Dunn
The “lonely airport guy” who shot to global fame for his Celine Dion YouTube videos after filming himself singing her song “All By Myself” at 2 a.m. while stranded overnight in our McCarran International Airport has “dunn” it again.
This time, Richard Dunn turned his single iPhone camera shots into yet another video after picking up a $1,000 voucher from Delta Airlines for being voluntarily bumped from a flight from Venice, Italy, back to Atlanta. He chose “The Prayer” in tribute to Celine and Andrea Bocelli and incredibly lip-synced it in English and Italian.
The last time he was bumped here and stranded at our airport, his video received 20 million views and is now on more than 340 websites in some 150 countries. Celine even invited Richard and his family to meet her backstage at Caesars Palace.
Viral-video star Richard told me: “When the surge from the first video was starting to die down, I began thinking about what I wanted to do next. I just had to do it again.
“Although I only had my iPhone with me this time and it’s no ‘airport’ video, it was still a lot of fun and well worth sharing. I hope it makes you smile! If you think it’s hard to make a fool of yourself in an empty airport, try doing it in front of hundreds of people in St. Mark’s Square.
“When I got bumped, I was hesitant to do another video, but I needed to be true to myself. I have spent the past four months telling people to look for opportunity, to throw caution to the wind and just shoot videos, and here I was looking for a reason not to do it.
“These are hard to shoot. This time I only had the iPhone, no iPad, and the headphones were broken. But it was another unplanned opportunity, and I couldn’t let it go even with only a couple hours of daylight left. The gondolier thought I was nuts, especially when I changed shirts in the middle of my $120 ride!
“I hope Celine and her family see this and that they see it as another lighthearted video meant to make people smile.”
I think for a iPhone production, it’s a marvelous, fun video, and now with this early Vegas DeLuxe look, I predict millions more hits for the future Hollywood director if he ever wants to trade professions.
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.
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Follow Sun AE Senior Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.
Caesars Palace
Transport yourself to the opulent and excessive Roman Empire at Caesars Palace. But the ever-changing Caesars Palace is far from ancient. The hotel and casino is constantly raising the bar for what visitors can expect in a Vegas resort experience.
Caesars Palace features 3,348 rooms and suites in five towers, including the new luxury boutique Nobu Hotel and Restaurant, which opened Feb. 4, 2013, in the totally remodeled Centurian Tower. Caesars features 129,000 square feet of gaming space, including the Strip’s largest poker room and a 250-seat sports book. Other amenities include about two dozen restaurants, a four-level shopping mall, four pools, a spa, Pure and Poetry nightclubs and Pussycat Dolls.
Dining options include restaurants from world-renown chefs Guy Savoy, Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay and, on Feb. 4, 2013, Nobu Matsuhisa.
You never know what characters you’ll run into at Caesars with regular performers like Jerry Seinfeld, Bette Midler, Elton John and maybe even the emperor himself.
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