David Blaine is one of the world's best illusionists and daredevils, but what do you really know
about the man behind the magic?
Turns out, he's just as good at raising his daughter as he is at burping up frogs.
Over a decade ago, David Blaine added a new job title to his resume alongside winning
the Guinness World Record for breath-holding.
In 2008, he held his breath for 17 minutes and four seconds and somehow managed not to
die, but becoming a father three years later might have actually been a far greater feat.
That's all because Blaine's pregnant then-fiancée, Alizee Guinochet, went into labor in the middle
of a blizzard that blanketed New York City in 19 inches of snow.
According to Page Six, Blaine tried to hail a cab when the French model started having
contractions, but it was to no avail.
A source told the tabloid,
"The doorman and people on the street tried to help him flag down a taxi.
But there were absolutely no cars on the road."
After that, Blaine — who's well versed in testing his own endurance — tried to call
various car services, but none of them would come out in the storm.
He eventually managed to flag down a snowplow driven by a private contractor, who gave them
a ride to the hospital.
While part of us definitely wanted Blaine to deliver his own child during a weather
emergency like it's some kind of televised stunt, the illusionist is apparently much
more cautious when it comes to the lives of his loved ones.
Guinochet delivered a healthy baby girl named Dessa in the hospital later that night.
We're not quite sure what caused the end of David Blaine and Alizee Guinochet's relationship,
but the cheating rumors probably didn't help.
In 2013, he was accused of cheating on his fiancée.
Early that year, Blaine was reportedly spotted in a New Jersey club getting cozy with another
woman.
TMZ claimed his hands were, quote, "in some very interesting places," and we know they're
not talking about a block of ice or giant sphere of water.
So, what went down?
A representative from Blaine's camp told the tabloid that everything was all good.
He wasn't cheating because he was on a break from Guinochet.
Blaine's rep revealed,
"He and his fiancée have been on and off, but nevertheless he regrets his actions and
is sorry if he caused her any embarrassment."
The two apparently split up, though neither publicly addressed it.
Nonetheless, the father has remained dedicated to his daughter.
In a year that seemed so astronomically unbelievable, what's a little magic trick?
In 2020, David Blaine used the novel coronavirus pandemic to give back to patients, medical
workers, and first responders.
According to the New York Post, the illusionist started performing for hospitals when he was
18 years old, but decades later, the pandemic has forced him to rethink how to do magic
tricks via FaceTime.
"Turn over the top card, the one that you counted.
Let me see it?"
"No!
… You're a witch!"
Speaking about his experience performing for hospitals remotely, Blaine told the New York
Post in April 2020 that he was having hospital personnel call him when he's needed, and that
he'll make the time.
He recalled,
"I was driving once, got a call and pulled over immediately.
I took out a deck of cards and did FaceTime magic as best I could.
I jump to it because you don't know what will be going on, and who will be where, if you
call back 10 minutes later.
But what I do is easy.
The real challenge is what nurses and doctors and patients are going through on the front
lines."
Blaine revealed that FaceTime magic has its own challenges – especially during a pandemic.
With the audience wearing masks, he can't read their facial expressions.
He mostly sticks to simple card tricks and asks that viewers have a deck on-hand.
Unlike his regular routines, which aim to freak out onlookers, Blaine just hopes to
keep things calm, provide a distraction, and give his audience "a few seconds of laughter."
In 2020, David Blaine introduced his daughter to the family business.
That year, his young daughter Dessa joined the star during his ABC special "David Blaine:
The Magic Way."
Though Blaine performed tricks for stars like Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, at a swanky
party with none other than Chelsea Clinton in attendance, among others.
But despite all of the special's star power, Dessa was the one who really stole the show.
During the hour-long special, the then-9-year-old wowed James Corden with a card trick.
She somehow managed to guess the late-night TV host's card even though she was initially
wrong because Corden tried to trip her up.
Just like her dad, she was one step ahead.
"Oh, you tried to confuse me.
You went to a red, and then you went to a spade."
Dessa was even able to name every card that the comedian pulled.
How?
Like she'd tell us!
Clearly, the girl has been spending a lot of time with her dad, but hopefully, we won't
see her submerging herself in a sphere of water for a week anytime soon.
Let's leave that to the adults — or just David Blaine and David Blaine alone.
In David Blaine's "Vertigo" challenge, he stood on top of a 100-foot high, 22-inch wide
pillar for 35 hours without a harness and emerged with little more than a concussion.
It's safe to say, he can handle difficult things.
He's a master of endurance, but an explosive feud between a mother and her child is a different
beast entirely.
Nonetheless, the illusionist was reportedly able to help Madonna, the Queen of Pop, reconcile
with her eldest son, Rocco Ritchie.
In 2016, Madonna and ex-husband Guy Ritchie were in a grueling custody battle.
According to the Daily Beast, it caused years of turmoil, particularly for Rocco, who was
about 16 years old when he decided that he wanted to remain in London with his father
rather than live in New York with his mom.
This is something that was rattling on since the pair's divorce in 2008, but at what age
do you become old enough to choose?
In any event, it was David Blaine who stepped in to smooth things over.
According to Page Six, the magician had a close relationship with Rocco and had been
"helping Madonna mend her relationship" with her son.
He even joined the pair on their annual ski trip to the Swiss Alps.
David Blaine: full-time illusionist, part-time family therapist.
There's one major fact everyone needs to know about David Blaine's life today.
As much as PETA probably resents him for it, he's never stopped swallowing reptiles.
Seriously, the frogs don't look harmed, but emotional trauma doesn't leave physical scars.
The signature trick sees him regurgitating a live frog into a glass, swallowing it for
a second time, then regurgitating it again.
No one really knows why Blaine likes this trick so much, but probably because it grosses
out just about everyone.
"Also, I'm gonna…
I'm gonna put him back where he came from."
He first performed the trick in 2016 at Google's Camp, and sources told Page Six that guests
were completely grossed out.
He performed it a second time later that year for Drake and the guests of the rapper's All-Star
weekend party, which included Dave Chappelle, Shay Mitchell, and Steph Curry.
Drake was reportedly "absolutely floored" — probably because he's used to drinking
finer things like Virginia Black and not slimy live amphibians.
Two years later, the party trick remained a favorite, and Blaine reportedly made Alicia
Keys scream when he swallowed the frog during the Yellow Ball at the Brooklyn Museum.
Leave the frogs alone, dude.
David Blaine appears to have a thing for models.
Years after the illusionist split from his French model fiancée, Alizee Guinochet, rumors
swirled that he was involved with supermodel Naomi Campbell.
According to Page Six, the pair had been "casually hooking up" when they were snapped on a yacht
in Saint-Tropez by a photographer for TMZ, reportedly looking cozy with each other.
A source told the tabloid,
"They've known each other for a long time, but there is a mutual attraction, because
they are both as charismatic and as crazy intense as the other."
Unfortunately, this unlikely couple may have not actually been a couple at all.
A rep for the model told Page Six that they're nothing more than "great friends."
The Blast noted that they've been friends for more than 20 years.
The gossip site also claimed the angle of TMZ's saucy yacht photos was "misleading,"
and the pair wasn't even alone on the boat.
How unromantic.
Just because David Blaine appears fearless, it doesn't mean that the star is never afraid.
At one point, he worried for his life when a 2016 stunt went disastrously wrong.
The stunt, in which Blaine attempted to catch a bullet with a cup in his mouth, was performed
live in Las Vegas and taped for his ABC special "Beyond Magic."
As it was supposed to go, he'd pull a string and fire a rifle before catching the bullet
with a metal cup in his mouth.
The only problem was that the cup slipped, becoming detached from the mouth guard that
was in place to protect his gums.
According to the special, the device had been constructed just one hour before the performance.
"My advice to him, from the start, was –" "Not to do it."
"Exactly."
In the special, Blaine recalled what it felt like when he realized the device had failed,
saying,
"Time just started to move really slow.
When the bullet struck the cup, there was a high-pitched ringing in my ears and I felt
an impact on the back of my throat.
I was sure the bullet went right through my head and that I was dead.
Suddenly I became aware of the pain and it brought me back.
At that moment I realized that the mouth guard had shattered [...] and I was alive."
Somehow, Blaine escaped with no more than a laceration in his throat.
He was transported to the hospital and healed up just fine.
Joaquin Phoenix's bizarre, staged interview with David Letterman in 2009 may have been
a supremely uncomfortable experience, but David Blaine actually set the standard almost
a decade before.
In 2001, the illusionist delivered a truly bizarre interview to UK presenter Eamonn Holmes
on "GMTV."
The star was promoting his recent special "Frozen In Time" – the ice cube one – and
basically spent the entire interview staring blankly and mumbling.
"What is it, are you a stuntman?
What are you?
How would you describe yourself."
"I'm just a showman."
"Yeah."
The weirdest part was when he lifted his hand to reveal that he'd drawn an eye on his palm
for "protection."
If only we had been protected from ever seeing this in the first place.
Our questions — and there were a lot of questions — were finally answered almost
two decades later when Blaine reunited with Holmes on "This Morning."
The illusionist admitted that he purposely made the interview awkward to prove a point.
He told the hosts that he intentionally acted bizarre on TV to get the attention of other
people in the green room, who he noticed weren't paying attention to their friends going on
the show.
In his words, he thought, "I'm going to make sure that they watch" – the only question
was, how?
"A card trick would be too boring.
It's not going to stop the people in the green room from chatting.
So I, last-minute, came up with that idea."
Mission accomplished?
Outside of the world of "Harry Potter," magic doesn't exactly exist.
Though David Blaine has never revealed the methods of trickery behind some of his stunts,
he did give us a sliver of truth in 2017.
As it turns out, some of Blaine's most anxiety-inducing tricks aren't illusions at all.
They're tests of human endurance, and he's worked his way up to surviving when the odds
are against him.
In an interview with "Thought Economics," the star admitted he first realized endurance
was his skill when he became the fastest runner in his school.
He started researching magicians and realized that Houdini was an escape artist, and he
wanted to do magic, too.
He said,
"My first stunt was to be buried alive for seven days.
My best friend [who is also a magician] said I should go in, sneak out, and come back at
the end.
I said, 'No, it's just a week in a coffin.
I can do that for real.'
He didn't think it was possible but I realized it was simple.
... It was just lying there, not eating and keeping hydrated.
... I put a coffin in my living room, started to practice, and then I did it for real."
In short: when it comes to some of his tricks, Blaine is far more of an athlete than he is
a magician – though we're still not sure about those card tricks.
David Blaine can now add flying to his list of supernatural abilities, since that's exactly
what he did over the Arizona desert in September 2020, while strapped to several giant helium
balloons.
During the stunt, which Blaine called "Ascension," the magician managed to reach heights close
to 24,900 feet, an altitude that required him to even wear an oxygen mask, considering
it's the height at which airplanes usually travel.
Blaine eventually used a parachute to land after a successful 30 minutes in the air.
If you're wondering why Blaine chose to hang from balloons in the first place, he revealed
in a YouTube video that he'd dreamed of flying ever since he was a little kid.
He added that specifically it was "a movie about a boy that floats away on a bunch of
balloons" that inspired his love for levitation.
During "Ascension," Blaine was apparently able to accomplish what he always dreamt of,
and he told his daughter about how the experience made him feel, speaking through his radio
while he was in the middle of the flight.
"It's so beautiful.
It's like magic.
It feels like I'm floating."
As of the making of this video, "Ascension" was Blaine's latest stunt to date, but it's
safe to say he left things on a good note.
That's because when the event live-streamed on YouTube, it became the platform's "most-watched"
Originals live event at the time, according to Reuters, as more than 770,000 people tuned
in to watch Blaine take to the skies.
Over a year later, "Ascension" had more than 24 million views, proving that Blaine still
knows how to wow an audience, as well as himself, in this case.
David Blaine is returning to the small screen on Disney+.
According to The Wrap, National Geographic announced several projects with the streaming
service in early 2022 that appear to focus on travel and the environment, and will feature
an array of stars like Will Smith and Jon Favreau.
Blaine, in particular, is set to get his own series entitled, "Beyond Belief With David
Blaine."
While the illusionist is no stranger to TV, this one will be quite different from what
he's done in the past, in that it doesn't focus on his magic tricks or stunts.
Instead, the show is reportedly more of a documentary that, per The Wrap, follows Blaine
as he "goes on a global odyssey across remote cultures."
Of course, there will be magical elements involved, as he'll work with shamans and other
magicians around the world who, like him, seem to do things beyond what most people
think is possible.
It appears the Disney+ series is the latest way for Blaine to get more eyes on his magic,
in a way that doesn't necessarily involve death-defying stunts.
He seemingly was never interested in just performing live on stage for small audiences
and knew how TV could lead to him reaching millions.
Street Magic Training Center reports that Blaine even got on TV in the first place by
boldly bringing his own footage to executives at ABC, despite not having a formal meeting
scheduled.
Since then, Blaine has had several popular TV specials over the years, proving when it
comes to entertainment, he knows what he's doing.
When David Blaine isn't impressing celebrities with his illusions, he's apparently just hanging
with them.
According to Page Six, Blaine was once part of Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio's notorious
friend group, which also includes actors Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, and Kevin Connolly.
Despite being grown men, the crew was rumored to even call themselves by a pretty lewd name:
"Who got the most p—- in the p—- posse?"
According to Kevin Connolly, the term was never actually used by the group to refer
to themselves, but was instead coined by a magazine writer – and the name stuck.
"It was just weird because we never called ourselves that."
While it's unclear if Blaine is still single since splitting with his fiancée, French
model Alizee Guinochet, back in 2014, he was notably missing from DiCaprio and Maguire's
boys' night in Hollywood in February 2022.
Outside of his fellow heartbreakers, it appears that Blaine is also good friends with Morgan
Spector, one of the stars of HBO's hit series "The Gilded Age."
Us Weekly reports that not only was Blaine present at Spector's 2015 wedding to "The
Town" actor Rebecca Hall, but he also entertained his fellow guests by performing magic tricks.
While Blaine is clearly capable of impressive card tricks and death-defying stunts, it seems
he also just enjoys entertaining people.
When he's not planning his next TV special or going viral for his past street magic,
he apparently spends his life today hanging out with his celebrity friends or his daughter,
Dessa Blaine.
Yet, if these days are anything like the past few years, then we imagine that David Blaine
is also probably preparing his next major magical feat to remind people that he's still
one the best in the game.
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