My Experience with Vince Kelvin, Pick Up Artist

My Experience with Vince Kelvin, Pick Up Artist

I met Vince Kelvin (not his birth name) on Sunset Boulevard. He was sitting in a black mustang with tinted windows. The hood was covered with hot pink stripes and a huge skull and cross bones. I didn’t know it at the time, but Vince had a habit of doing this — sitting in a car on the street for hours in order to talk to young women. I never saw him talk to a woman who looked over twenty-seven. Vince was in his 40s at the time.

I was walking back from an audition. Vince started chatting me up as soon as I passed by his car. I was new to L.A., had never heard of a Pick-Up Artist, and it was a day before my birthday. I was a single person in a new place who was planning on celebrating her birthday alone. I probably would have been friendly with anyone who seemed nice. Vince saw something, but he didn’t see Me. He got me to give up my phone number and before I knew it, we were hanging out on a regular basis.

It didn’t seem like Vince had a real job, but he lived in a mansion in Sunset Plaza. The house sits on a hill and is a stop for one of those Hollywood tour buses. Vince told me Courtney Love used to live there. He was sure to invite me over for the first time when the bus was scheduled to stop in front of his house. He greeted me outside and walked me in as the driver and tourists gawked and speculated about who we were. Vince loved it. I could feel it following him into the house. He seemed more excited about impressing the tourists than seeing me. He looked at me while sitting on his bed and said, “Wow! You’re hanging out with Vince Kelvin!” Another day, Vince sat on that same bed and told me I needed to be more “aggressive” because a lot of other women were vying for his attention.

The house was beautiful. And a million people (guys) were living there. One of the residents was another Pick-Up Artist. The other roommates were guys who were paying Vince for fashion advice and tips on how to pick up as many women as possible. Vince complained that one of the students would clip his toenails by the pool. The guys would clean for Vince and the other PUA during the day. At night, Vince would take the guys out all over Hollywood and coach them through how to pick up women and take them home. Vince would instruct his clients on what to wear, say, and how to act. He had his favorite pick-up lines. I heard him say some of the exact same things to various women — as if the same thing should work on everyone. The men would often pretend to be each other’s bodyguards. I saw Vince take a woman on a date and one of his clients stood by all in black with an earpiece. They’d pretend to be each other’s bodyguards in order to make women think they were more important than they were. Vince liked to drink Rockstar energy drinks just because it said “rockstar” on the can. He and the PUAs in training would often talk about “F-closing” women. Vince spared no expense when it came to his image. . .even though he was broke. He had hair extensions to fill out his mohawk.

Vince was very proud of his mustang with the hot pink stripes and cross bones on the hood. He tinted the windows so dark he kept getting tickets. He accumulated so many tickets at one point, he could not legally drive his car. I had to help Vince pay his tickets online one afternoon. I don’t know if he needed the help because he has poor eyesight or if it is because he didn’t know how to navigate Traffic Court online. I was literally his fingers on the keyboard as he told me his license plate number, etc. He sat cross-legged on the floor like a child while I tried to help resolve his debt to the city.

Vince liked to rent limousines whenever possible. Once he rented a limousine to go out to an Easter brunch at a hotel in Beverly Hills. He asked for a female driver. When we exited the vehicle, the first thing thing Vince did was ask the driver for a pic. She promptly said, “No.” Vince said, “Nobody trusts me, anymore.” A big part of Vince’s business model is using random women as free models in order to create content that promotes HIM.

Vince was always trying to bump up against fame, like it would rub off on him or something. He’d randomly call me and say he checked himself into a rehab that was known for servicing celebrities. He’d stay at the 1-star Alta Cienega Motel (even though he had a residence in walking distance) just so he could stay in the same room Jim Morrison occupied so long ago. I remember him sitting on the bed in the dark, smiling, like he had accomplished something. The room was tiny and the walls black with graffiti.

Vince was broke the whole time I knew him (despite living in Courtney Love’s alleged old spot). I drove us to Trader Joe’s in West Hollywood once. Once he saw that I had a luxury car, he always wanted me to drive. Even if I was driving to his mailbox, he’d want to jump in and be seen. I went my own way as soon as we entered Trader Joe’s. I caught up with Vince in the check-out line and he did not have enough money to pay for his groceries. Not long after that, Vince ordered groceries late one night from Pink Dot. He insisted that I follow him outside to meet the delivery guy. Once outside, I saw that Vince didn’t have enough money to pay for the groceries he ordered. I watched him decide what he would take and what he would leave since he didn’t have enough money to pay the whole bill. When his mom came into town, she gave him gift cards to buy food.

Vince would kiss any woman on the street who would let him or who didn’t react in enough time to stop him. Again, I only saw Vince do this with women who were much younger than him. I think COVID is the only thing that stopped him from implementing this practice. People are much too scared of that kind of contact now with a random stranger like Vince. Not only would he try to kiss every (young) woman on the street, Vince would attempt to film it. Vince filmed women regardless of whether or not they consented. Vince filmed women regardless of whether or not they knew they were being filmed. Vince invited a woman to sleep over. In the morning, he filmed her while she was asleep and told a made-up sexual story about her which included a lie about how they met. He posted the video without her permission and without telling her he filmed her in the first place. It wasn’t uncommon for Vince to invite women to sleep over and play blaring, extremely loud music the whole night so the woman couldn’t get any real rest.

Vince invited over two Black women once to lounge by the pool. He enticed them to fight then took a photo of one throwing the other into the water. He sent the photo to me and whoever else he thought would laugh at them. I was offended and told Vince I didn’t think the photo (or him passing it around) was funny. He said he felt “judged.” Vince would encourage female guests to wear his leopard print robe so it would look like they had just had sex. He would also pressure women to experiment so he could film it or take a photo of women kissing.

Tired of his antics, I once walked out of the rented mansion in a huff. Once we were outside and in the line of sight of some of the hidden cameras, he raced in front of me so it could look like I was chasing him as opposed to it looking like he was chasing me. I also noticed Vince was fond of the phrase, “No fat chicks.”

I made the mistake of letting Vince in on my passion at the time -recreational pole dancing. I was taking three or four dance classes a week at a professional, world-renowned dance studio in Hollywood. I auditioned for shows, performed with bands, danced in recitals, and tried to carve out a career as a pole dancer in television and film. Pole dancing made me feel alive. I was getting into better shape. It helped me recover after a Cancer diagnosis. Plus, it was always fun. Vince completely misinterpreted my hobby. He then set out to exploit me even more than he originally planned.

After hanging out with Vince for some time, I started to realize he was framing me in a way that was not right. He kept telling people we met at the Hustler Store — which was not true. He kept telling people I worked in a “strip club.” I had an advanced degree and was working for the government. Yet, Vince kept spreading lies about me no matter how much I would correct him. It was really important to Vince for people to think he was hanging out with paid dancers. We went to X-Pole one day, a well-known ariel equipment brand. Vince kept wanting to take pictures with the brand in frame so he could show people that he was pole shopping with a girl. He bought an $800 pole (even though he was in debt) so he could entice women to come over and use it while he took pictures. One day, Vince invited me over and I met a friend of his named K. It was obvious to me that Vince wanted to sleep with K, but she kept calling him her “best friend.” K was going through a divorce. Vince was allowing her to keep her things in the mansion while she figured everything out. Vince kept trying to convince me to get into a fake fight with K over him near the pole so he could film it. That afternoon, I learned that K is Bipolar. She talked about her inability to emotionally connect with her son and noticed at one point that I had stopped looking at her. She was walking down Hollywood Boulevard alone with her hood over her head the last time I saw her.

Using other women to entice me to help him make worthless content did not work. He would also try to use my own friends. He invited me and my friend over to help him install a pole he bought. My friend was a NYU/Tisch graduate who moved to L.A. to cement her place in this world as a professional actor. We began to work and three seconds later Vince barges in with a camera crew. The camera was pointed at me and my friend like a gun. That’s how we felt. Vulnerable. Scared. In Danger. Why are you doing this? My friend immediately ran into a closet in an attempt to avoid being filmed. Vince humiliated me in front of my friend. Worst of all, I was scared my friend thought I was in on it.

Vince would also use me to pick up other women. I guess he seemed less creepy with me (a woman) around. Vince tricked a woman into coming to his home one day by telling her he would take her shopping. Total lie. Vince bombarded the woman as soon as she was inside the house. He crashed into her with a kiss on the mouth before she could even say, “Hi.” Someone with a camera jumped out from behind a wall and took a photo as soon as Vince kissed her. Vince used the picture as a thumbnail for a video called, “Sluts of America.”