omonatheydid | Party-crasher at Cannes is a professional Psy impersonator

Remember this guy?

As it turns out, he's not just some random, but a professional Psy impersonator with industry connections:

"My manager, and I have been working together a couple of months now, touring around nightclubs in France. Then we hired a communications team to help us plan how we were going to [get into A-list parties at Cannes]. So we had some people situated in the business - I'm not going to give out names, but people who are very high profile people."

Fake Psy speaks! Impersonator Denis Carré on how he fooled Cannes, Gangnam Style
By Oliver Franklin 25 May 13

The biggest story from this year's Cannes Film Festival hasn't been any premiere , but that of Fake Psy. An imposter dressed as the K-pop sensation behind "Gangnam Style" gained access to star-studded parties, photobombed celebrities, and even appeared on French radio before being outed by the real Psy thanks to a photograph on Instagram.

Now Fake Psy has been revealed as 34-year-old South Korean business consultant turned professional Psy impersonator Denis Carré. GQ managed to get in touch with Carré, to tell us how he did it…

GQ: So how did you get into impersonating Psy?
Denis Carre: I used to live in Ireland for over 12 years, between Dublin and Cork. I was a business consultant; I specialized in the fashion and luxury industry. But since all of this happened towards the end of last year my career changed and I embodied completely the Psy lookalike role.

How did Cannes come about - have you been planning this for a while?
Yes indeed. For the French market I'm not that unknown - I've been on television several times in France already and also in Spain. So we were thinking, "OK, where do we need to go to make a big buzz?" Quite frankly we weren't expecting it to go to this extent, but we knew Cannes was probably the ideal venue to gain as much awareness as possible. So the aim was for people to discover who I am, as a lookalike. Obviously, it makes commercial sense in terms of the fact that we already have more requests for bookings from nightclubs. But the principle aim was purely a one shot marketing/public relations trick. The aim was not - as a lot of the press is saying at the moment - to drink for free and eat for free! Especially that a lot of the people who invited us knew who I was really, and they were involved in the game. So the game was for them to say "Oh, I got tricked!" Where a lot of them, I assure you, were totally aware of what we were doing.

You say "we"?
My manager, and I have been working together a couple of months now, touring around nightclubs in France. Then we hired a communications team to help us plan how we were going to do it. So we had some people situated in the business - I'm not going to give out names, but people who are very high profile people. If you were to hear the names, you would say "wow". You would never expect that from these kind of people, actually. But that's how we got the pass into every A-list night at the Cannes festival.

How many people knew it was you, and how many thought you were the real Psy?
The vast majority thought I was him. I would say there was three categories of people: the people who believed I was him, the people who had doubts but didn't dare come and ask me, and finally the category of people who knew basically who I was. Who was the most famous person I met? I cannot give names for the simple reason that for me, this was work. I really want to protect the identity of the people that I met. So I won't provide names, but I'm sure if you look at some of the pictures you can see who was there and when.

How much effort did you put into looking like him?
This is the funny thing about the whole thing - I never worked hard on looking like him. It was funny to read in the press that I bought the same jacket just to look like him - there a pictures of me back three or four years ago where I dressed exactly the same. The clothes that I have are clothes that I've had for ages. That's the reason people confused me with him at the beginning. I would say that he stole my style! The only thing I did to imitate him was to remove my socks. I read in interviews that he doesn't like wearing socks. So that's the only thing I had to get used to.

Did you practice the dance? There's a video going around of you doing a demonstration for a French radio station…
Yeah. For example, those guys totally knew who I was - it was all staged and prepared. That's an example of people who knew, but knew that adding that would add buzz to them and a buzz to the whole thing.

What's next for you?
The next step is to meet the real Psy. We are trying to do that and I would love that, because he changed my life. I'm launching my first single by Wednesday this coming week, hopefully. I've had offers as well coming from the TV… I can't really say more at the moment.

So would you say it worked?
Oh yes, it worked! I've lined up seven interviews already with Korean TV. But the one thing I really want to say to the crowd out there, is I really didn't do that to take advantage of anyone or to upset anyone. It was just a marketing shot, and I did it for entertaining people.

Prior to embarking on his new career as a Psy impersonator, Dennis Carré was a sales manager.

Source: GQ.com, Cork Indpendent.

I'm not sure whether it's better or worse that this was a publicity stunt by a professional marketing guy...