Parents in Naples, Florida, can no rely on a new tool to teach their misbehaving children a lesson – a creepy 65-year-old clown called Wrinkles.
Sporting a scary clown mask, a polka dot onesie and black rubber gloves, Wrinkles is definitely an unnerving sight, which is exactly what he is going for and what makes him so popular. In the few years since he adopted this creepy persona, the 65-year-old man hiding behind the gloomy mask has carved out a niche for himself, either attending birthdays, bar mitzvahs, funerals or whatever kind of events that require the presence of a spooky clown with hollowed out black eyes. And business is good, as Wrinkles told local reporters that he is booked through January.
One of Wrinkles’ latest endeavors involves scaring misbehaving children out of their minds. He was recently hired by a mother to teach her trouble-making 12-year-old son a lesson. “He was scared of clowns and I showed up across the street from him at the bus stop and he just started crying in front of his friends and ran home,” the creepy-looking character said. “His mother called back a few days later and said ‘Thank you!’ Now when he acts bad, she just has to ask him: ‘Do you want Wrinkles to come back?’ ”
Photo: video caption
Although he prefers to keep his real identity a secret, Wrinkles told the Palm Beach Post that he is a 65-year-old Rhode Island native and army veteran who moved to Florida to enjoy a more relaxed life far away from the harsh New England winters. But he soon realized that playing golf and hanging around at country clubs like most of Florida pensioners wasn’t his cup of tea, so he came up with an original idea to keep himself busy. So he ordered a clown mask online, created some business cards and stickers advertising his phone number and started playing the creepy clown for anyone requiring his services.
Photo: video caption
As time went by, his popularity grew to the point where he now gets hundreds of phone calls every day, although he admits some requests are too much, even for him. Wrinkles said he has received requests from people to help them dump a body and other explicit requests to engage in lurid behavior, but he always turns them down, preferring instead to stand quietly in the corner at bar mitzvahs and birthday parties, or freaking people out on the street, for a fee, of course.
Photo: video caption
“It’s fun,” he said. “You get to be someone else. You get some people who are petrified and some people who want you to come home with them.”
As you might have guessed, Wrinkles isn’t particularly fond of kids and entertaining them with the old balloon animal tricks. He’s old-school. “I’m just a good old-fashioned clown,” he said. “When I was a kid, it was okay to scare kids and now they’re all whiny and scared. I want to bring scary back.”
