Mayor Bill de Blasio can’t even get out of bed early or change his schedule for the Grammys.
There was a 9 a.m. press conference planned on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden to announce that the Grammys are coming back to NYC in January after a long stint in LA.
But sources said de Blasio insisted he couldn’t make it until 11:30 a.m. “because he had to go to the gym.”
So Recording Academy and Grammy Foundation president and CEO Neil Portnow said, “Forget the press conference. I’m not waiting for de Blasio. I’m putting out a press release.”
The mayor’s dedication to his morning ritual at the Park Slope YMCA is well documented. He’s even held meetings there. His spokesman responded: “100 percent false. He had a 9:15 a.m. event he had to be at and was at. It had nothing to do with going to the gym.”
The rep said it was a “campaign event” on 62nd Street. So he was fund-raising again.
Reps for the academy didn’t respond.
The academy estimated that producing the event in NYC would cost $8 million more than LA. Talks had stalled after City Hall declined to offer extra funds for the move, but the mayor’s media and entertainment commissioner Julie Menin raised the money from private interests.
The Grammys, which will air live from MSG, could pump close to $200 million into NYC’s economy.