14 DAY TRIAL // Paul Walker, the “Fast and Furious” actor who died over the weekend in a fiery car crash just outside Los Angeles, was more than just an action movie star and international celebrity. He was also a dedicated humanitarian and charity worker and, as this story confirms, an overall amazing person.
Many years ago, Irene King used to work as a clerk at a jewelry store. On what seemed like a regular day, her colleague told her that Paul Walker had just walked in and, naturally, she looked and noticed that he was a very handsome guy.
In the following minutes, she was about to be impressed by more than just his good looks, she tells CBS Los Angeles, even though he probably never knew that she’d been privy to his secret, which she kept all these years.
Also in the store was a young couple who’d just gotten engaged: he was a soldier just back from a tour in Iraq, looking to buy his lady a beautiful engagement ring before he was shipped off on duty again. Sadly, what his lady thought was the perfect bauble was well beyond his budget.
“She saw something that she really, really liked, but he said, ‘Honey, I can’t afford that’,” King says, explaining that the particular ring the woman had set her eyes on cost $10,000 (€7,357).
Her future husband couldn’t afford it but Paul Walker, who had already made a killing on “Fast and Furious,” definitely could. More importantly, he had a generous heart and, implicitly, the willingness to do a random act of kindness towards a perfect stranger.
“He called the manager and he said, ‘Umm, the ring that those people are looking at – put it on my tab.’ Soon after that, he just left,” King tells CBS, adding that the actor insisted with the manager that the happy couple may never know the name of their benefactor.
Until today, they didn’t. Now, King explains, she’s going public with her story because she wants Paul’s fans, those who didn’t know about his generosity until now, to remember him by it. “To do something like that to a perfect stranger is just unbelievable,” she says.
It is unbelievable, that’s true. According to Paul’s friends, it is also the kind of thing that he would normally do.