My Brother Responds To Petty
-
- February
- 1
PHOENIX, ARIZ.—Today’s column centers on a used-car transaction my brother, Pete, supposedly had many years ago with the one-and-only Tom Petty, who, with his band, The Heartbreakers, will supply the half-time entertainment at Sunday’s Super Bowl.
According to Pete, a guy, whom he insists was Petty, wanted to buy a beatup 1966 Corvair Pete was selling for $200. This was on Staten Island in 1972, years before the world had any clue who Tom Petty was.
Pete claims “Petty” got into a minor accident during a test drive and still owes him money for the damage done to another car.
So yesterday, I got a hold of Petty at a pre-Super Bowl press conference and asked him about it.
Petty said my brother was either a liar, or someone was impersonating him. Of course, the question is who on earth would impersonate Tom Petty BEFORE he was famous.
In any case, Pete was sticking to the story this morning. He sent me this e-mail:
“Someone called me today and said Tom Petty called me a liar. Tell that pop eyed freak I’ll fight him any time… and he owes me $100 plus interest from 1972.”
And here’s the latest from Petty rep Kristen Foster:
“Tom grew up in Gainesville Florida and moved to Los Angeles thereafter,” she said today. “All of which is documented in his documentary “Runnin Down A Dream.”
This entry was posted
on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am by Phil Reisman.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
| 
Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
