Iedereen die het bijna geniale Exit trough the Gift Shop heeft gezien, heeft vast het gevoel gehad dat ze naar een nep documentaire zaten te kijken. Maar volgens dit interview dat Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brain Wash met de LA Times had was het allemaal 100% echt wat je gezien hebt. Uiteraard is er de nodige research gedaan naar Thierry en dat bleekt ook te kloppen. Zoals het er nu uit ziet zal Exit trough the Gift Shop volgende maand een Oscar gaan winnen, en Banksy heeft beloofd deze op te komen halen. Dus Wordt Vervolgd.

Over cigarettes and McDonald's fries at his studio on La Brea Avenue last week, Guetta [Brain Wash] recounted his path from a rough Parisian suburb to California, where he repeatedly reinvented himself - going from teenage nightclub impresario to clothing store owner, filmmaker and, ultimately, pop artist. If there was one constant, it was Guetta's uncanny knack for selling Angelenos the cutting edge of cool.

The details of Guetta's unlikely biography are broadly supported by a review of public records, which trace his life in Los Angeles from his arrival as a teenager in the early 1980s. They are also consistent with the accounts of friends, former business associates and employees over those years.

Of course, it is impossible to prove whether his latest incarnation, Mr. Brainwash, is sincere. The film suggests that Guetta's artistic alter ego is largely a creation of Banksy, a notion Guetta doesn't refute.

"Banksy captured me becoming an artist," the paint-splattered Guetta said, surrounded by the stacks of art books and pop-culture clutter from which his work is derived - or ripped off, depending on your view. "In the end, I became his biggest work of art."