Following the tumultuous events surrounding Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, this week’s state dinner featuring King Charles and Queen Camilla proceeded smoothly and without incident.
First Lady Melania Trump turned heads in a pink Dior ensemble, golfer Rory McIlroy received a special mention from the President, and the King charmed Trump by presenting him with a golden bell recovered from a ship bearing his name.
This occasion marked the inaugural state dinner of Trump’s second term, and by its conclusion, White House organizers likely felt a sense of relief.
Memories lingered of an audacious security breach nearly 17 years ago, when two uninvited individuals managed to infiltrate President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, causing a stir that reached Capitol Hill.
The interlopers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi from Virginia, were in pursuit of reality TV stardom.
At that time, Michaele was set to appear on Bravo’s upcoming Real Housewives of Washington, DC, while Tareq, known for his involvement in polo and as a winery heir, was actively building his reputation within the local social scene.
On November 24, 2009, Obama was hosting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the White House’s South Lawn when the Salahis – Michaele dressed to impress in a red sari – breezed past reporters in the East Wing’s Booksellers Hall.
A Washington Post gossip columnist recognized them and noticed that their names were not on the official guest list.
Photos soon surfaced of the couple posing with Obama and Singh at a pre-dinner reception in the Blue Room.
A White House official confirmed that they had never been invited – and had not been seated at the dinner itself.
Michaele and Tareq Salahi walk through the Bookseller’s area of the White House on November 24, 2009, where Barack Obama was hosting India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the then president’s first state dinner of his administration
The Salahis meet President Barack Obama in the White House’s Blue Room during a 2009 incident in which they allegedly ‘crashed’ the White House state dinner. Taleq told the Daily Mail that there’s more to the story
Yet the fact that two aspiring reality stars had slipped past Secret Service and sidled up to the then president for a photo-op was damaging enough.
Congressional investigators hauled the Salahis before the House Homeland Security Committee, where both pleaded the Fifth Amendment.
Now remarried and living in Florida, not far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Tareq Salahi, 56, insists that the official account misses the point.
‘There really was no crashing,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘You can’t sneak into the White House.’
After Bravo axed DC Housewives and replaced it with the nearby Potomac franchise, the Salahis divorced. Tareq spent time in Los Angeles before returning to northern Virginia, where he met his current wife, Lisa Spoden, ‘on a buddy’s yacht.’
The couple settled in Wellington, Palm Beach County’s so-called ‘horse country’, where he works as a cruise industry consultant, weaving his passions for wine, polo and sailing into a single enterprise.
‘Even when I host a cruise, I’ll sometimes give wine seminars or play polo for guests at different ports,’ he said. ‘It’s my favorite things all merged into one big, lovely circle.’
He has also kept one eye on the reality TV world he left behind, catching some of Members Only: Palm Beach, the Netflix show following women connected to Mar-a-Lago – because a friend of his, Gale Brophy, appears in it.
Salahi has been remarried for ten years to Lisa Spoden, both above at an event at Art Basel in Miami in December, and now lives in Palm Beach County not far from Mar-a-Lago
Salahi continues to play polo and shared a recent photo of himself on horseback. The former reality TV personality also said a possible documentary is in the works that will reveal more answers about the alleged White House ‘crash’
‘It makes the Real Housewives of DC look conservative,’ he said.
When asked about a potential cameo, Salahi hinted at something far larger in the works.
‘I am in the middle of something right now that’s being developed,’ he said. ‘It goes back to the Real Housewives and the original White House, and it sheds more light on things that were previously not disclosed. There was some documentation we always held onto secretly, and we’re sharing it.’
The project, he said, leans more toward documentary than reality TV, and is in development now.
‘It’s really going to put the wrap on it,’ he said. ‘Because I still get asked everywhere I go: “How’d you do it?”‘
His answer, as ever: it was television.
‘People always forget it was a TV show,’ he said. ‘It was more exciting that there was a crashing scene and that’s what everybody remembers.’
He insists he has no regrets. ‘All those things happened for a reason, and they put me where I am now.’
As for Michaele, the two have not spoken in a decade. After their split, she rekindled a relationship with Neal Schon, co-founder and lead guitarist of Journey. The pair married and remain together, with Michaele still making regular appearances on the rock band’s social media.
‘I wish her the best,’ Salahi said. ‘We both have our own separate lives.’
