On Monday, the Internet learned that real human being Ryan Gosling had joined the ranks of hero after breaking up a New York City street fight. ("Street fight.") Many questions remained after watching the shaky video evidence, though, and the guys over at OMGICU.com tracked down Gosling street fight videographer Valerie Herrera to get to the bottom of the incident.
"There were guys fighting over a painting," Herrera said when asked how things started. "One guy just kinda walked up to the other one and just took the painting and walked off. So he was like, 'You're going to have to pay for that.' They started fighting and then they started fighting in the middle of the street."
Per the crafty camerawoman, the incident took place on June 24, nearly one month before Gosling co-starred in Crazy, Stupid, Love. "Yeah, I kinda forgot about the video and then I just posted it," she said of the time lapse. "I'll be honest. I didn't exactly know who [Ryan Gosling] was."
Despite the fact that the camera cut off abruptly when the men walked out of the middle of the street, Herrera says the incident didn't end there. "Ryan took [the two men] to the corner and asked them what happened. [The artist] explained to him, 'This guy stole my painting.' So [Ryan] said, 'Okay, how can we fix this? How much was the painting?' [The artist] said, 'It's $10.' So [Ryan] dug into his wallet, took out a twenty, gave it to [the artist] and said, 'Will this settle his debt now?' [The artist] said, 'Yeah, he's free to go.' [...] They all walked their separate ways and that's it."
As for whether it was staged, the videographer didn't think so. "No, you can literally tell that he did that out of the kindness of his heart." Aww.
[OMGICU.com via Vulture]