Nearly 17 years after two uninvited guests brazenly crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner, one of them is speaking out. Tareq Salahi, now 56 and living in Florida, insists the official account misses the point. 'There really was no crashing,' he told the Daily Mail. 'You can't sneak into the White House.'
The Infamous Night
On November 24, 2009, Obama was hosting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the White House's South Lawn when Tareq and his then-wife Michaele Salahi breezed past reporters in the East Wing's Booksellers Hall. Michaele was dressed in a red sari. A Washington Post gossip columnist recognized them and noticed 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 they were never invited and were not seated at the dinner itself.
The fact that two aspiring reality stars had slipped past Secret Service and sidled up to the 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.
Life After the Scandal
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 appears in it. 'It makes the Real Housewives of DC look conservative,' he said.
A New Documentary
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.'
