Ian McKellen turned down an astonishing $1.5 million offer to officiate a billionaire’s wedding dressed as Gandalf.

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McKellen was offered the sum by Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and the first president of Facebook.

The wedding went ahead with a Tolkien theme anyway and cost $7.5 million. Apparently the wedding cake was 9ft tall.

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McKellen explains:

I was offered $1.5 million to marry a very famous couple in California, which I would perhaps have considered doing but I had to go dressed as Gandalf.

So I said, ‘I am sorry, Gandalf doesn’t do weddings’.

He was a very rich man, that’s all I know… I don’t go dressing up – except in plays and things at places like this.

They still got Sting though so it wasn’t all bad:

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Officiating that wedding would taken, what, 30 minutes tops? Easiest $1.5 million anyone could ever make. How does Ian McKellen think the rest of us feel when he publicly turns up his nose at $1.5 million just to dress up for 30 minutes? Well I guess when you’ve been both Gandalf and Magneto in multiple films $1.5 million isn’t really that much money. Would’ve been cool to see him smash that wedding cake with his staff though.