We find ourselves indebted to rapper T.I. today, not just for his contributions to the worlds of acting and music, but also for having found what may be the perfect way to end any writers-blocked story in the English language. Or, at least, any story that starts with you luring a guy away from jumping off a building with offers of weed and the chance to hang out with T.I., and ends with: “And I didn’t know it, but that was Scott Stapp from Creed.”
For context, T.I. was telling this particular tale as part of a recent GQ profile about his frequent bouts with life-saving weirdness (which also includes an incident in which he inserted himself into a suicidal jumper situation that was already being handled by police negotiators, which, okay, cool). Anyway, back to Stapp-land:
And we continue to smoke, and then [moaning sound]. So I step out and look down and don’t see nothing. And then I look up and—”Oh shit, it’s a white man up there!” [laughs] That’s what really shocked me. Blood shows up real good on a white man. So I’m like, “He’s bloody, fucked up.” And he’s like, “Those motherfuckers, I’ma get ‘em, I’ma get ‘em.” And he tried to get up and he fell back down. Clearly his leg was broken or something. And he told us the story about how he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend. He tried to jump from 14—and I think we were probably the sixth floor, something like that. And he was trying to continue to jump. And we was like, “No, no, no. Don’t do that.” So basically, I offered him the J, but he couldn’t reach me. So I said, “I tell you what, I’ll let you hit it if you let me call somebody to get you down.” So he let us call somebody to get him down.
And I didn’t know it, but that was Scott Stapp from Creed.
See? It’s the perfect twist ending.
Really, though, the beauty of the phrase is its applicability to so many walks of life. “A guy cut me off on the highway yesterday. And I didn’t know it, but that was Scott Stapp from Creed.” “An armed vigilante saved my family from a mugger. And I didn’t know it, but that was Scott Stapp from Creed.” “The sandwich was invented by an 18th century British lord. And I didn’t know it, but that was Scott Stapp from Creed.” That’s the beauty of Scott Stapp, people: For all we know, he could be anywhere right now.