THE cancellation of a glitzy dinner talk by former US President Bill Clinton in Aberdeen nearly a decade ago left ticketholders bitterly disappointed and the organisers facing financial ruin.
But in the calm after the storm, former Olympic athlete Brian Whittle, the event organiser, finally breaks his silence about how what should have been a glamorous star turn from Clinton turned into a rancorous debacle.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Herald, the runner turned MSP, accused Clinton's former agent of “abhorrent” bullying over the cancellation of the speaking event in the Granite City back in 2008.
Whittle claimed the “disgusting” behaviour of Clinton's representative – who he refuses to name –meant the event was shelved and led to the collapse of' his event management business.
In a series of explosive claims, Whittle alleges the agent acting for the ex-president shouted abuse and made threats against him.
Whittle and his co-director of Glasgow's PB Events – former Scotland rugby star Derek Stark – pulled off a coup by booking the former US leader. However the media reported that ticketholders were left out of pocket after the dinner was cancelled when Clinton pulled out after not being paid his fee upfront.
Whittle said: "The story that came out was that there were all these people that never got their money back. That's fundamentally untrue as nearly everybody got repaid."
Whittle was hit with a gagging order by Clinton’s agent in the aftermath of the notorious episode that preventing him from telling his side of the story.
"We were not allowed to discuss the president's involvement in this," until PB Events folded, Whittle says. "Of all the things that have happened in my life that was a public bruising. We got absolutely flailed and we couldn't respond.
"We couldn't afford to go to court to get that gagging order lifted, so we just had to take the pain."
Whittle says Clinton’s agent was paid a deposit of 95,000 Euros of a 200,000 Euros fee to host the event in Aberdeen.
The deal came after Whittle's firm had hosted previous events in Glasgow for Clinton, former US vice president Al Gore and Swedish diplomat Hans Blix who led the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in 2000.
Whittle says that the event ran into trouble when the bank pulled his firm's overdraft facility.
He said: "We paid the deposit to Bill Clinton. We then got the sponsorship in and as soon as the sponsorship came in to take us back into the black the bank called pulled the overdraft.
"So all of sudden we were with a much shorter cashflow. Which actually meant we were then struggling to pay the next tranche of Bill Clinton's money,
"We'd already taken in a fair amount of money from subscribers, from corporates wanting to go and individuals."
Whittle claims the unnamed agent would not give PB time to pay nor would he pay back the deposit.
"But the behaviour and the way he treated us was abhorrent and the way he spoke to us was disgusting."
While Clinton's agent, was "contractually" correct" Whittle says repeatedly uttered threats to financially ruin Whittle.
He said: "He'd shout at you in a room full of people. He was full of his own self-importance and he had to be seen to the big man in the room."
Adding: "He was an obnoxious, self-centred, self-opinionated abhorrent person. Because of the people he represented he obviously thought he had the ability to speak to people however he liked. He was a complete bully, an utter bully and I don't respond well to that."
Whittle was forced to cancel the event with £300,000 losses when the financial difficulties became too great.
In a bitter twist, it emerged soon afterwards that Clinton would have had to pull out anyway to his campaign for wife Hillary who was running for the US Senate at the time.
Whittle said: "Had he have pulled out first then all the money would have come back, but it didn't because of the order in which things happened."
A European-based company that represented Clinton at the time the Aberdeen event was cancelled could not be contacted.
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