LeBron James was comped a $3,000 cake for his birthday at the last minute in exchange for free publicity, but the publicity never came because Bron Bron thought the cake was ugly...
From Gossip Extra
Passion for Pastry owner Alethea Hickman, a well-known Boca Raton baker, is downright pissed off!
The $3,000-birthday cake she was asked to deliver to James’ New Year’s Eve party at theShelborne South Beach hotel in Miami Beach – free of charge as part of a “sponsorship deal” – supposedly wasn’t fit for the king!
“It was a great cake,” Hickman said. “I could’ve blown it off because I had so much work with the holidays, but I came through at the last minute. I don’t even known what they did with it at this point. They have no respect.”
Two days before the Miami Beach fiesta for 50-plus that included Heat teammates Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Juwan Howard, Hickman tells me she received a frantic, all-in-caps email from Samantha Rosen, the Shelborne‘s marketing director.
“URGENT!,” the email read. “NEED CAKE FOR LEBRON JAMES BIRTHDAY THAT WILL BE HOSTED AT THE SHELBORNE HOTEL BY DWADE, GAB UNION AND HEAT TEAMMATES.”
There was a catch: Hickman couldn’t charge anything, simply because James wouldn’t pay for it — never mind that James is in his second year of a $100 million-contract with the Heat!
In exchange, however, Rosen promised free publicity for Hickman’s Passion for Pastry: Photos of the cake would be distributed widely to the press and twittered with the name of her business prominently mentioned! Rosen didn’t return calls for comment but her boss Jared Galbut, the newly-redesigned Shelborne‘s managing principal, confirmed the deal today.
Lebron chose the cake on the right
