Retired teacher buys snacks for stranger short on cash, shocked to find it’s an A-list singer

A retired teacher from New Jersey almost became a local celebrity after she helped four-time Grammy winner Keith Urban, thinking it was an act of kindness. Back in 2018, Ruth Reed, who worked as a substitute teacher at the time, mistook the country star for a helpless man short on cash at a local Wawa convenience store. She though it was an act of kindness, but was shocked to learn who the man was, she told Pickler and Ben in an interview. 

A rather famous act of kindness

Reed's story was shared on X by someone who screengrabbed the retired teacher's Facebook post. In the post, Reed had written that she was shopping at the Wawa store when he came across a man who was short of a few dollars. 

She added that she jumped in to help the man when he asked the woman accompanying him for some money for the snacks. Reed told the man that for the past three years, she had committed to helping someone at the store every week. 

Reed then wrote that the man thanked her and asked for her name. When Reed asked his name, he said it was Keith.

"I said he did look like Keith Urban, he said he was," Reed wrote. However, the retired teacher didn't believe him and asked him where Nicole Kidman (his wife) was at the time and who was the woman with him.

Urban told her that it was his sister and that Reed could ask one of his bodyguards to confirm his identity.  "It was then I realized what an idiot I was,” Reed added. She then said that the star graciously allowed her to take a picture with him and left her with an incredible story to tell.

As per TODAY,  Urban was in the locality for his tour stop in nearby Camden, New Jersey, one day after his Citi Concert. 

While Reed’s celebrity encounter made headlines across all major news publications, internet praised her kindness and the resolution she had taken up.

While this story of an unrecognized story was heartwarming, not all stories go down that well. Back in 2009, when a family from New Jersey failed to recognize one of the greatest songwriters in history, Bob Dylan, they ended up calling the police. 

When the officers arrived and asked the old man why he had trespassed, Dylan explained that he had accidentally mistook the family's house for a property on sale and had strolled into the yard.  Further, when he told the police who he was, they refused to believe him as he didn't have any ID.

However, Dylan explained that he was touring at the time and was stationed at a hotel. The police initially thought that the man could be an escaped hospital inmate. However, when they took him to the hotel after following his directions, the staff confirmed his identity as Dylan went to his room to fetch his passport. The passport confirmed who he was, and the embarrassed officers let him go, as per ABC News.