FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Nightlife

I Crashed Jack Ü and Justin Bieber's Grammy Parties and Got Stranded at The Weeknd's Birthday Mansion

By 2:43AM I had been kicked offstage 92 times.
Photos via author

My capacity for being a Jack Ü thot is limitless. Last March, when the duo unveiled their self-titled sophomore EP at Skrillex's house, I marked the occasion by getting a Diplo tattoo on my ass during the 24-hour livestream of their party. When they invited fans to make art in an LA gallery for their "Where Are Ü Now" music video back in June, I showed up in my favorite Justin Bieber T-shirt and doodled to my thirst's content. So on Monday night, when Skrillex and Diplo celebrated their winning streak at the Grammys—where they made their live television debut and won both Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Dance Recording—I naturally had to tag along and crash as many parties with them as I could.

Advertisement

PART I: DIPLO'S ELEGANT RAGER AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT

After watching the Grammys on TV at home, I showed up to Diplo's private party at the famed Hollywood landmark Chateau Marmont. The event started at 9PM on the outdoor patio in a giant translucent canopy tent with Persian rugs, velvet couches, and potted shrubbery. It was an intimate gathering of Diplo's 50 closest worshipers, including industry heads from Mad Decent and OWSLA, A-Trak, AlunaGeorge, Makonnen, and randomly, Chris Rock.

After half an hour of schmoozing, I wandered over to a private bungalow where I found Skrillex in the middle of a gaggle of girls, including Bibi Bourelly, co-writer of Rihanna's BBHMM. I would have stayed and lingered but I was hungry and eating goat cheese in front of celebrities just really isn't cute, so I devoured one lump by myself, then fled.

PART II: SKRILLEX PARTY BUS KIDNAPPING + JUSTIN BIEBER'S GRAMMY PARTY

On way out the Chateau, I was kidnapped by an Azn raver girl and thrown onto a party bus outside with 15 other EDM thots, allegedly on Skrillex's orders. Top 40 was blaring, everything was covered in laser beams, and before I could collect myself, we had arrived at our destination: Justin Bieber's Grammy party at celeb hot spot Nice Guy. A hundred paparazzi were parked by the barricade outside the private lounge, flashing their cameras at the slightest human movement entering or exiting the premises. The concentration of celebrities was so high that within ten minutes, I had chatted with Usher about him being a predecessor to today's alt-R&B sound, and took pics with both Justin and Khloe Kardashian.

(Photo via the author)

Advertisement

PART III: THE WEEKND'S BIRTHDAY CELEB-CLUSTERFUCK

After Nice Guy, I Ubered back to the Cheateau so I could make my way to the night's final destination: a hilltop mansion in Beverly Hills, where GQ was throwing a birthday party for The Weeknd, who was also celebrating his Grammy wins, and where Diplo would be DJing. In order to get there, I had to wait in line for an hour with other guests and party crashers to be driven up to the mansion in a shuttle. It was 1:33AM when I arrived at the most lavish mansion—LA's closest thing to the Palace of Versailles. Custom "XO" logos were branded everywhere—from the pool table to the bottom of the backyard swimming pool.Outside the house, we were welcomed by a smoking, overturned car straight out of the music video for "The Hills," which had "crashed" on the driveway. Directly across from it was a $300,000 glossy red McLaren wrapped in a bow, a gift for The Weeknd.

(Photo via the author)

After making my way down the outdoor double staircase onto the backyard floor, I passed a huge lounge area filled with vintage arcade games and instantly lost myself in a lively, 1000-strong crowd. Unfortunately, the alcohol had run out and the caterers had just a single Krispy Kreme doughnut left (I should've eaten more goat cheese), so I went about my linger sober.

(Photo via the author)

Wedged between the pool and a mini-stage was the dancefloor, where Diplo and A-Trak were both DJing (rare af). A rotation of rap celebs came up to wish happy birthday to The Weeknd, who was front and center with Bella Hadid, having the time of his life. I can vividly remember DJ Khaled hyping up the crowd, next to Rae Sremmurd lighting up a blunt, right before Travis Scott appeared to perform "Antidote." By 2:43AM I had been kicked offstage 92 times.

Advertisement

PART IV: FROM HOSTAGE TO HOMECOMING

With no alcohol or food to fuel on, and my iPhone battery reaching its imminent death, I decided to leave at a responsible time to be peasant human the next day. This is when myself and a group of 50 others who left the party learned from an event staffer that the LAPD had just shut down the party due to noise complaints from neighbours, and were blocking the single road on the hill with their police cars. No one knew if any shuttles were coming up to the mansion to take us back to the bottom of the hill, which is when everyone started get upset and anxious that we were trapped and would have to sleep on Krispy Kreme boxes like the ravers at TomorrowWorld.

To make the situation even more confusing, despite the road closure, celebrities were somehow still arriving with their entourages by the droves. While waiting for some kind of transport to take me home, I saw Calvin Harris, P. Diddy, Ty Dolla $ign, Tyga, some Kardashian-Jenners, Justin Bieber, and Post Malone all pull up. Jamie Foxx arrived with two white girls under each arm, and perplexed at the sight of our defeated faces, blurted out, "DAMN, WHY Y'ALL LOOK SO SAD? WHO DIED?" I would have laughed if I had the energy.

Our shuttle forcing a BMW off the road (Photo via the author)

It was already 4AM and there were still no shuttles in sight. Delirium got the best of me and I, following the lead of some daring others before me (girls in heels, HOW?), decided to walk down the pitch-black hill back to civilization.

I hadn't walked 100 feet when I saw the lights of a shuttle bus coming onto the driveway, so I sprinted back up to catch the first ride back behind an elderly lady on crutches. The lucky 14 of us sunk into a deep relief (sleep) like we'd gotten a life raft on the Titanic.

But it wasn't over. Driving down the hill, we passed all the guests who'd decided to descend on foot; they all shone their iPhone lights at us while banging windows and frantically begging to be picked up, which our driver paid no mind to. After several police checkpoints and having to force a BMW convertible out the road from head on, we finally escaped The Weeknd's zombie apocalypse.

The hills do have eyes. It was lit, but next year I'm getting a helicopter.

Jazper is the world's reigning EDM thot. Follow him on Twitter.