Nicolas Cage's Wedding Reverend 'Dumbfounded' & 'Shocked' Over Annulment
April 18 2019, Updated 12:22 p.m. ET
The reverend who officiated Nicolas Cage’s bizarre four-day marriage to his fourth wife has been left left “dumbfounded, upset and shocked” after the actor filed for an annulment, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
The Oscar-winning actor, 55, and his girlfriend Erika Koike, 34, grabbed headlines around the world after they tied the knot at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas last month.
Four days later, Nic claimed he was too intoxicated to understand what he was doing.
Reverend Phil York, 75, who has 25 years of experience marrying couples in Sin City, disputes that Nic or Erika were too drunk to get married when they said “I do” to an empty chapel with no friends or family present on March 23.
He revealed that the actor appeared “quiet and serious” during the no frills 10-minute ceremony, which cost the notoriously free-spending Cage around USD $1,500 to $2,500.
Reverend York says he would like to look the actor in the eye again and ask him: “What happened, you told me you wanted to get married?"
Speaking exclusively to Radar, Phil said: “I recognized Nic straight away when I came into the chapel. I’ve seen many of his movies and I think he’s a great actor. He was very quiet and serious but when I looked them in the eye and asked the question they both said ‘I do’. There was no hesitation. I always look for slurred speech or if people are wobbling around, but I didn’t see anything untoward.”
Reverend York adds: “By license, if we think that they’re too drunk or drugged we can’t go through with the ceremony. I was just dumbfounded when I heard that he had got an annulment. I was surprised and shocked to hear that. I was kind of upset by the whole situation. The young lady said she had known him for four years.”
Despite Erika being close with her family and Nic’s son Kal-El, 13, also living in Vegas with his mom Alice Kim, neither one of them had any guests at the ceremony.
“It was just the two of them. It was kind of strange because usually when people get married they have a couple of close family there or friends,” says Reverend York. “They didn’t have anyone. I really felt kind of bad I didn’t have time to talk to them before because I had just finished another ceremony. The guy who does video at the Bellagio had to stand in to be their witness. We usually shoot a video but they didn’t want one. It’s too bad we didn’t because you would have seen they both looked at me and said ‘I do’."
Nicolas and Erika were first spotted on vacation together in Puerto Rico in April last year.
They were photographed together the following month leaving a restaurant in Los Angeles but had kept their relationship low key since then.
In his request for an annulment, Cage claims both he and Koike had both been drinking “to the point of intoxication” on the day they got married.
He also claimed that Erika did not tell him “the full nature and extent of her relationship with another person”.
To top it all off he said she had not disclosed “the full nature and extent of her criminal history,” which allegedly includes “additional active criminal proceedings.”
Video footage of the moment the couple went to apply for their marriage license showed Nicolas screaming “She is going to take all my money” and “Her ex is a druggy”.
Erika can be heard saying: “Baby, I am not asking you to do this.”
Photographs also emerged of the pair apparently having an argument outside the Bellagio just hours after their ceremony.
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Nic is asking for a divorce if an annulment is not possible. It is understood Erika is not challenging the annulment.
Reverend York said: “I would really like to go talk to him but I’m guessing with all the notoriety around it he probably wouldn’t want to talk. I imagine he is quite embarrassed by the whole thing. I would say to him: ‘Nic, what happened? You both told me you wanted to get married. I’d like to listen to him and find out what happened.”
