It’s official. After his PR tour of the past several months, Bristol Palin’s baby daddy Levi Johnston is now openly seeking some degree of fame full-time.
According to his new manager, Tank Jones, he’s getting closer to a signing deals to will help him support the baby son, Tripp, he fathered with Bristol.
“[Levi Johnson] has got offers on the table for a little bit of everything – sitcom appearances, a reality show, some modeling,” Jones says.
“We haven’t signed anything, but there’s offers.”
Jones declined to give specific details, but Johnston’s interest in a show business represents one of the few viable careers open to him, he adds.
Levi, 19, “is going to go and take the test and finish school and enroll in some college courses,” his manager says. “[But] it’s not like he can get a normal job.”
“Because of all the publicity. The whole interviewing thing, and red carpet and paparazzi – he still hasn’t gotten comfortable with it, but what else does he have? Can he go work at McDonald’s? … He wants to take care of his son financially.”
Jones, an Anchorage private investigator and press rep, is counseling Levi Johnston to think about a more glamorous look and has urged the teen to assume a playful new identity – “Ricky Hollywood” – when it comes to style and attitude.
“We came up with an alter ego,” explains Jones. “As in, ‘Ricky Hollywood would iron his shirt.'” Don’t worry, we don’t get it either.
Last week, Jones accompanied Johnston – who has appeared on the Larry King and Tyra Banks shows and in a GQ photo spread – on a trip to Los Angeles.
At a party in L.A., they hit it off with Renata Espinosa, a fashion writer and columnist for The Daily Beast, who invited them on an L.A. shopping excursion.
Espinosa said of Levi: “He was just a very casual, shy kid who’s saying to himself, I’m getting this attention, so how do I use it to help support my family?”
Jones says Johnston and Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have put the bitter child support and visitation disputes behind them and are harmoniously working together to raise 6-month-old Tripp.
“All that stuff has been worked out,” says Jones of the formerly engaged pair. “Levi goes and picks Tripp up and takes him places. All of that.”
Johnston said Bristol’s feelings – and those of her sister, Willow, 14 – were his biggest concern in the recent Sarah Palin-David Letterman feud.
“I don’t think he was trying to be malicious. I just think the joke maybe went too far,” Johnston said, noting that you can’t do nothin’ about comedians.
Click to enlarge more pics from Levi and Tank’s shopping trip …
[Photos: The Daily Beast]