Jon Gosselin Gets Dissed by Seasoned DJ, Mentor – DJ Koolie Kirk: “He didn’t know how to mix … I felt used”

DISCLAIMER: THIS INTERVIEW IS NOT THE OPINION OF THE REPORTER OR THAT OF EXPLORE NJ, IT IS A TRANSCRIPTION DONE IN GOOD FAITH THAT DESCRIBES THE INTERVIEWEE’S PERSONAL OPINION ON THE MATTER. ALL CLAIMS ARE ALLEGED AND ARE NOT FULLY VERIFIED AS FACT.

DJ Jon Gosselin who is better known for his role in the TLC series Jon & Kate Plus 8, was the headlining DJ at Harrah’s The Pool After Dark in Atlantic City. Shortly after taking the stage with sidekick DJ N-DO, Entertainment Reporter Whitney Ullman received a lengthy message from his self-proclaimed mentor DJ Koolie Kirk, which outlined his gripes over Jon’s poor DJ skills and ability to maintain a friendship. See what he has to say about Jon….

WHITNEY: Tell me what happened after you saw him play at Harrah’s The Pool After Dark?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: After watching his videos from the weekend, I am extremely hurt and disappointed by his actions.  I pulled all his music and sets and quite frankly the idea for him to explore a career as a guest DJ was entirely mine.

WHITNEY: Really, how did that come about?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: It was. It was about a year ago when we were sitting at my house. John was quite down, he just broke up with a girl Liz he was dating. I said to him “Why don’t you start celebrity guest Dj’ing?” I said “you could guest DJ like Paris Hilton and reinvent yourself.” Will he admit it was my idea, I highly doubt it, especially since his actions have ended our friendship.  In any case, I had told him back in July…then in August, he starting coming to my house to learn.  At this point he was working with this other guy who would book him parties…Jon took over Liz’s job and would show up an spin, but he was totally green and didn’t know anything.  

“HE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO MIX”
“HE DIDN’T KNOW PRESENTATION”

And he can’t talk in the mic and engage the audience. He needed an enormous amount of training. Therefore, he would have a sidekick that knew how to DJ and make him look good.  Just so we are clear, I have been DJ’ing for the better part of over 10 years and have won the Mountain Dew mix off two years in a row for Power 99, Philadelphia.  He knew I knew what I was doing and he knew I was the best teacher for him.  I spin turn tables and he was learning on NS47’s.  We agreed to be a team and work together.  Working together we started getting some bigger events and then we brought in that kid who ended up by his side at Harrah’s Pool.  Ironically, I trained that kid a couple months before Jon.  The kid did not know how to spin on the turn tables.  Jon was doing what he could to make money as he was struggling financially.

WHITNEY: Wow, so you’re saying they were novices, but Jon still got gigs, and you’re implying that it doesn’t make sense that he could make $20k for one gig?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: I guarantee you that Jon did not receive $20,000, I have a copy of his contract showing that he made $3,000 for the Harrah’s Pool job.  $600 went to the booking agent and he didn’t want to pay me the $800 that we agreed upon because that would’ve only left him with $1,600 and he is financially down and out.  It is sad, that he betrayed me and ended our friendship for a lousy $1,600. 

*disclaimer: no contract was reviewed or submitted to Explore-NJ, all numbers are alleged and of the opinion of the interviewee

WHITNEY: Ok but the money aside, what’s your major beef?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: So the first red flag was he did a thing with TMZ. If you go back to the TMZ article he wrote “my boy DJ Koolie, he’s been my friend for a long time” …he just wrote DJ Koolie [not Koolie Kirk], because Jon feels threatened by me because I’m really good. I always felt he was threatened by me because of everything I was showing him and doing. So long story short, as we get closer, we did a couple things together, and we had rules…Jon would get hired to do gigs and I’d open up for him, or I’d let that kid open up for him or whatever. It didn’t matter to me. It was just more or less we were getting Jon on the map because I figured he might be able to catch a break… The owner from Building 24 called me and said, “What do you think of Jon?” I just said “He’s not ready for the club but I’ll tell you what, why don’t you book him in the lounge, I’ll be by his side all night. We’ll both do it together and I’ll monitor it. Maybe we can make a big spring fling thing out of it.” So we did it and it turned out really good… I’d have to say there were more people out there for me than there were him. People up in Berks County, they don’t care about him… So three weeks before that show, he goes “Guess what, guess where I got booked, guess where we’re going?” And I’m like what, what’s up. He said “We got booked at the Harrah’s pool.” I said “Are you serious?” He’s like, yeah. He goes you’re going to make $800…We get to do a red carpet, I get to do a red carpet and then I get to spin. I said Bro, we’ve got to practice … I couldn’t make this up if even if I was blindfolded to tell you this story. So he told me for three weeks…”Yo you’re going to open up.”… I said Jon, you need to call them and find out time wise. He kept blowing me off..I said ask for the rider, ask for what we need, what you need, the whole nine yards. That went on for three weeks…so I wake up one morning to a text with the Harrah’s information. I didn’t expect my name to be in headlights or anything, because he’s the celebrity DJ and I was just opening up. But you would’ve thought they would have put opening DJ’s like Eddie. Well he crops the flyer so that I can’t see the additional DJ part. So I say to Jon, who are these other two dudes? Am I on your show?. He says, “Oh yea, you’re on the show”. So I say, well they didn’t put my name. It would’ve been alright if it said Jon Gosselin’s opening DJ. So he kept saying, let me call them, let me call down there.  He just kept giving me the run around, it was constantly the run around, the run around while he’s coming to my house practicing, eating, drinking, making himself right at home, all the while he knew I was not on any bill, not opening, not going for that matter – but I was certainly good enough to teach him all of my skills… I just felt used all the way to this point…So finally we did some research and I called a good friend of mine who got the contract and said “You are not on this contract, and Harrah’s will not let you on stage if you don’t have a contract, Kirk. He’s f#$#ing you right now.” So I called it to his attention. I’m like “Jon, this is not true bro, why are you telling me I’m suppose to make this, do this and do this?” And he’s like “I’m going to fix it when we get there.” And I’m like “You ain’t going to fix s##t bro. Bro this is not The Gin Mill or somewhere, this is a place where this is the real deal. You’re in a casino. They’re going to tell you what to do. And it’s funny cause I read his contract and then watched your video and he had to do certain things like be on the mic for a certain amount of time and I was laughing when I was watching the video. I said “Jon, if this is not true and you’re telling me this, my house is not a practice laboratory anymore. I’m telling you it’s done, figure it out yourself. Do your parties. If you have business make sure you bring me a contract, if it’s real … I’ll open up for you, I’ll do whatever you want.”

WHITNEY: What are some of Jon’s insecurities?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: He used to say “Does this mix together good?” Hell no it don’t mix together, that s##t sucks bro. “You’re terrible” and “look up”, is the kind of s**t that I told him. He never looks up, he looks at his computer all the time, he’s afraid to look up. You’ve got to interact with the crowd. The only time he can do that is if he brings his newly sidekick DJ with him, and that kid was his puppet. Now where the ugliness comes in is because I said “Jon, look, just get your stuff out of my house. It’s not a practice session anymore. Figure it out. If anything big comes up and you want to do business I’m here.” … So this kid gets on the show and I saw him posting “Oh, we’re going to get Harrah’s” and this and that. So I figured he might be on stage with him, but he’s not going to get to spin. Next thing you know this kid was spinning. So if I’m such a good friend how come you didn’t come back to me and say look, I fixed this Kirk. Because we’ve rode this out together, I’m sorry that your names not on but you are spinning… So now here’s two people I’ve taught, and I’ve been on some big stage, but he didn’t want me to catch the break, he wanted it. Which is what I told him that he needs to have… In my last email to Jon I said let me tell you something, that kid … he’s not a bad DJ, he’s okay. But I’m saying, he’s better than you Jon. So, if you felt threatened by me, this guy is still better than you…My thing is, why wouldn’t you come back and fix it…This is the kicker, and why you know this is truth and then it’s bulls##t. If you pull the People link up my name’s in the people link because after he found out that I could be on the stage he called People magazine… and if you read the article it says Koolie Kirk is the opening DJ for the Harrah’s. See, what he tried to do was fix it, the wrong way. He said I’m going to send this to Harrah’s and show them this is why he’s gotta be on the show. That’s why I did the interview. After it got printed and went on the internet he wrote me – I still have the text messages- “Oh you’re going to be famous now.” If you notice you watch back in your video, he’s constantly checking the kid beside him because Jon cannot DJ for four hours.

WHITNEY: This is some story, we get the point but what’s your ultimate goal? What do you want the world to know?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: Right, you know. It’s one of them things where the world needs to know that all I was trying to teach him was an art that I wanted the world to see that I do, and was trying to pass along to him. DJ’ing is an art, you know what I mean? I just wanted people to see what we really do as DJ’s, and this guy wanted to reinvent himself, and I thought he was my friend, a good friend, and I believed in him. My thing was, it wasn’t really about the money, it was the friendship and where, possibly, it could go.

WHITNEY: So bottom line you feel that he got the gig strictly because of his celebrity and not because of his talent and that bothers you?

DJ KOOLIE KIRK: I think … He reinvented himself, like, “He’s a DJ? Really?”… It was a very, very tough start for me. I have a nice apartment. Jon would come over … I had bills, you know what I mean? I am a typical, normal, good DJ, great guy, great father, and I pay my bills… He stuck with me… I never asked him for a dime, I never charged him, I never said, “I need money for my electric bill.” It was all about just being a genuine friend-to-friend, and making the best, showing him my art that I’ve been doing for years…As March moved along, he got booked at Harrah’s and told me I was on the show. I get excited and start telling my friends, but he kept blowing me off… The thing about it is, I put too much trust, as a friend. Here I thought he was my friend, looking out for me, and at times he was looking out for himself, which, in life a lot of people look out for themselves. I felt … “used” is just a good word.

DISCLAIMER: THE INTERVIEW ABOVE IS NOT THE OPINION OF THE REPORTER OR THAT OF EXPLORE NJ, IT IS A TRANSCRIPTION DONE IN GOOD FAITH THAT DESCRIBES THE INTERVIEWEE’S PERSONAL OPINION ON THE MATTER. ALL CLAIMS ARE ALLEGED AND ARE NOT FULLY VERIFIED AS FACT.