BEHIND THE SCENES DRAMA OF CRISS ANGEL’S ESCAPE FROM EXPLODING BUILDING

Minutes after his amazing unorthodox escape, fraught with unexpected dangers and difficulties Mindfreak magician Criss Angel told me, “I had no desire to die. I will never forget the worst moment of this escape, and its something I will never want to discuss, but for the first time fear took over the adrenalin. I had trained so hard for this demonstration. I was physically, mentally and spiritually ready but also knew anything could go wrong. We were live in full view of everybody, and things did go wrong. But the magic is that I got out alive from an imploding building. Failure was not an option as I told you earlier.”

A late storm and rain downpour over the Clearwater, Florida area almost doomed the life-threatening stunt- but Criss was determined not to disappoint his “Loyals.” Some of his army of fans had camped out for two-days to watch. Official reports this morning (THUR) estimated the crowd was over 50,000 plus TV crews en masse airing live feeds.

He had just picked himself free from locked handcuffs, kicked through a window, picked three of four other locks but didn’t make it through the last padlock at the top of three flights of stairs he’d raced up, and the waiting helicopter took off without him just before the Spyglass motel resort was imploded with 500 sticks of deadly dynamite. Viewers from around the world as far away as New Zealand and Latin America watched the frightening Houdini-styled escape live on A&E cable TV. “You’ve never heard silence from thousands of fans all at once,” said one of the show’s producers. “It was eerie to see so many people completely quiet and silent enough to hear Criss kick in the window as the glass shattered—seven floors up.”

Executives and staff at his Luxor home here in Vegas watched on special screens set up for the chilling challenge. Among them Luxor president Felix Rappaport who said, “I begged him not to do this. We had a $100 million investment riding on his new Believe show, but all I could get from him was a promise to be careful.” Director Serge Denoncourt who is in charge of Believe for Cirque du Soleil added, “It is the most dangerous thing I have ever heard of in all my years in this business. I didn’t want him doing it. But if it is in his mind Criss will go through with it. I am only happy now that he has promised everybody—including Cirque—there will be no more dangerous escapes like this.”

In our phone interview shortly after midnight Criss said, “ There’s no more escapes. This was it. Everything worked well in the rehearsals with the timing and picking the locks, but we hadn’t expected the rain and the humidity. Even the audio communications went out. I couldn’t hear them so I had to scream when I was ready for them to start the detonators. If I’d waited for them I would never have heard the firing signal countdown. None of the locks gave me any problems with my picks but it started raining again as we went up to the balcony for me to be handcuffed by the police chief. I don’t know whether it was the rain, the humidity or what but I couldn’t get that first lock open after I was free of the cuffs. I lost too much time there.

“For each lock though I had a contingency plan in place. That’s why I had to kick through the glass window to escape the balcony. But I was already many seconds past where I wanted to be. I got to the stairs to the roof for the waiting helicopter. The first lock opened fairly quickly. I still had a few seconds before it lifted off. But I couldn’t get the second lock to open and I knew then the helicopter would fly off.

“I’d promised my mother I’d get out alive so what you see is what you get, and I escaped as the building imploded on itself. At the end of the day I feel as if 4,500 tons of concrete have been lifted off my shoulders. I’m fine except for all the dust and flying debris and she’s doing good now.”

Criss, in a state of shock, stumbled out of the rubble as his anguished mother and anxious brothers ran towards the ruins. “This is the greatest escape since our hero Houdini,” said brother J.D. “It all ends now because you can’t out-do this miracle.”

If he keeps his promise to his mother it’s the last panic-filled escape stunt he will attempt. Now he concentrates on the launch of his new Believe show for Cirque du Soleil opening Oct. 12 at the Luxor casino resort.

Criss plans to stay in Florida only today to meet Greek friends and then fly back to Vegas tonight on a 6 p.m. flight.

“We’re rehearsing early tomorrow and all weekend—right through now until we open. That new countdown of 77 days has started ticking.”