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It turns out that the mysterious billboards that starting popping up around L.A. with messages directed at celebrities asking them to stop divorcing are all part of a marketing ploy—for a reality TV show.
The billboards, which were made to look as if they were coming from the Society For The Prevention of Celebrity Divorce (a fake organization which already had a ridiculous name to begin with), were part of an advertising campaign for the show, Marriage Boot Camp Reality Stars, according to a WE tv press release. It's the type of show that helps "celebrities" (from reality shows like Jersey Shore and The Bachelor) repair their marriages.
The signs now have a new message over them that direct Angelenos to check out the new TV show that premieres this week on the network.
Originally, the billboards read like open letters to Hollywood stars, asking them to stop "consciously uncoupling" (a jab at Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's recent separation) to save the relationships of common folk who looked up to celebs and followed in their footsteps. They had a very authoritative-looking guy (who could have been a stand-in for a lawyer who advertises his services on late-night TV commercials), J. Robert Butler, as the spokesman for the billboards. The marketing folks even created a detailed website with a back story on Butler's fake crusade to save celebrity marriages; he wrote on the website that it stemmed from how he was saddened when his daughter got divorced.
This feels like the WE tv folks may have followed in the footsteps of comedian Nathan Fielder, who was the mastermind behind the Dumb Starbucks store that popped up in Los Feliz in February and turned out to be a stunt. We'll dub this one as "Dumb Billboards."
