I didn't realize he was planning for six years, as I found out much later. Anyway, I had in my car a radio that connected me to the police desk at the World Trade Center. And on the day in question, and he had been with me quite a few days, and planning this great feat etc., stretching this high wire from one building to the other, it's about 130-some-odd feet, you know, and I had no concept. And the light went on. And the patrolman at the police desk said, "Mr. T" (They call me Mr. T), "there's a problem in the World Trade Center." I said, "What's the problem?" Said, "There's a guy walking on a tightrope between the two towers. What should we do?" And I couldn't think of anything else. I said, "Don't let him fall off," and I hung up. So then I drove a little further. I called back. I said, "By the way, this is incredible. There's somebody walk -- If he doesn't fall off, and he comes out, don't arrest him." Because we had Port Authority police.

Well, as it turned out, he was committing a crime. He was disturbing the peace. So when he finished his walk, I got to the building, and I went up to the deck, and I was watching Philippe lie down, and I thought, "My God, this is really something. It'll be on the front page of every newspaper in the world." And I think to this day some of the commissioners in the Port Authority think that I put Philippe up to this, to get publicity for it. But I didn't.

And when he came off, I said, "Philippe, tell me something. Why did you do it?" And he just looked at me and said, "Guy, I had to." I mean, that was it ... a simple description of what he needed to do. So he and I have remained friends. I helped him get a job at the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The judge called and said,"By the way, he's a nice young man." And what should he do? I said, "Well, I don't know. Judge, he's such a nice guy." And the judge came up with the -- "Let him do something, you know, that's nice." And the punishment was simple. For the poor kids -- And we brought toys to the poor handicapped kids, and we had them at Central Park, and Philippe walked across Central Park, the lake. And -- great guy. You know, you talk to him, he does have a book. And I love to talk to him.

When he came to see me, I said to him, "Listen. Tell me. Are you ever frightened when you're up on the wire?" And he said, "Well, Guy, tell you the truth. There was once." He said, "I lay down on my back, and I'm staring at the sky, and I was so happy. And all of a sudden a gull came. And the gull and I, eye to eye, looked at one another." And Philippe said, "You know, and I knew that he knew that I was in his territory. And I became frightened," he said, "because what would happen? I couldn't defend myself if he decided to get rid of me or attack me," etc. But he said, "Finally the gull flew away." And so Philippe, I know -- I said one other time, "What's the crucial moment?" He said, "There's that moment when you have one foot on the building and one foot on the wire, and you have to take this foot off the building and put it on the wire." He said, "And then you go transcendentally into another world. And you're out there."

So Philippe said to me, "By the way, Guy," he said to me, "Would you write a short sentence for my book?" He said he would put it on the jacket. And I thought and I said, "Yeah, I'd be happy to do that." So I wrote the following sentence, if I can remember now: "Philippe Petit committed the perfect crime by walking on a high wire between the Twin Towers, and the whole world loved him for doing it." So, and it's true.