David Choe, the graffiti artist who made headlines for having an estimated $200 million in Facebook stock, spent the last week in New York, granting interviews to a lucky few media outlets.

He snubbed the New York Times and Wall Street Journal but did agree to speak with Howard Stern, Barbara Walters for ABC’s “Nightline,” and the Taiwanese animated news service Next Media Animation.

Interesting choices.

Howard Stern offered to adopt Choe, after double checking that the artist still had the Facebook shares. Choe admitted that he had sold some a while ago but still had plenty left. The two agreed that if the adoption comes off, Choe would henceforth be known as Kim Jong Stern.


Barbara Walters allowed the artist to tag her shirt — while she was wearing it — and joined Choe in attempting to spray paint a wall, before asking him piercing questions about what he plans to do next. (He’s not sure, but he’d like to go away for a while).

The Next Media Animation piece, which the company claims was done in conjunction with Choe, depicts reporters, as roaches, seeking interviews with Choe and shows the artist taking a spaceship to a party planet to escape the media scrutiny.

On his Facebook page, Choe linked to the NMA piece with this note: “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm it’s only about 110% completely accurate.”

There was a recurring theme throughout the three interviews that Choe gave this week, and that is that he is not enjoying all the media attention.


“I can never buy back my privacy,” he told Walters, adding that he felt he could do everything he wanted before he had money.

Choe got the stock back in 2005 as payment for painting the walls at Facebook’s first headquarters. At the time, Facebook offered to pay him $60,000 or said he could take stock in the young company. Choe, who says he’s a gambling man, chose stock.

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