The 6 Weirdest Celeb Moments to Go Down in Washington, D.C.

Fear and loathing in Washington, D.C. (Splash News)
Fear and loathing in Washington, D.C. (Splash News)

Dozens of celebrities will descend on Washington, D.C., this weekend for the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. While it's ostensibly a black tie dinner thrown by the White House Correspondents' Association in honor of college journalism scholarship recipients, in recent years it's also become a celebrity spectacle, with media organizations competing to amass the strangest, most disparate groupings of famous people at their table. But as we've all learned from the Golden Globes, celebrities + booze = drama. Here are a few of the more memorable celeb moments that have gone down in D.C.

6. Hereeeeee's Uggie

Uggie (Getty Images)
Uggie (Getty Images)

The Correspondents' Dinner's descent into the Beltway Academy Awards has been coming for nearly 100 years, but never did the celebrity invites seem more worthless than when the adorable dog from The Artist attended in 2012 as a guest of the Washington Times. What in the Sam Hill could a dog possibly get out of a black tie dinner?

5. Ben Affleck gets a taste of his own medicine

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (Getty Images)
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (Getty Images)

Ben Affleck, a two-time Academy Award winner and outspoken liberal, is an obvious choice when it comes to inviting a famous face to the Correspondents' Dinner. Indeed, he's been to a couple. But his experience in 2004 was likely soured when a group of reporters took him to task for his infamous film flop, Gigli. Affleck, according to an anonymous White House correspondent, was chastising several reporters for their belief that voting in federal elections was a conflict of interest, saying it's simple to keep one's personal and professional lives separate. When a reporter mentioned that he got engaged to his Gigli (and Jersey Girl) co-star Jennifer Lopez, Affleck's publicist escorted him out of the room.

4. Bradley smuggles in his Cooper

Bradley Cooper and Suki Watherhouse (Getty Images)
Bradley Cooper and Suki Watherhouse (Getty Images)

For men, black tie attire is easy. Just get a tuxedo, some nice shoes, pull up a YouTube tutorial on how to tie a bow tie, and you're ready to go. But does traditional black tie mean underwear or not? It can be tough to remember. Bradley Cooper insists he "had to" skip the undies when he attended a White House state dinner in 2014 in honor of French President François Hollande because he was having trouble fitting into his tux. At the time, he was trying to quickly gain weight for his role as Chris Kyle in American Sniper.

"I'm getting dressed like 10 minutes before I'm supposed to go and, literally, the pants go up to like here," he said during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, motioning to his upper thighs. "I just started laughing actually. 'This is hilarious, I'm going to meet the President.' So I had to go commando, number one, because there was no room at all. I did. I had to."

3. Joe, meet Sofia

The moment it all began... (WireImage)
The moment it all began... (WireImage)

You could describe the Correspondents' Dinner in a lot of ways, but "romantic" is typically not one of them. But, hell, when there's a spark, there's a spark. At last year's dinner, Magic Mike star Joe Manganiello was photographed staring directly at Sofia Vergara's butt. Apparently it was a pleasant enough experience that he decided he'd like to do it again — this time in private — and asked her out.

As Vergara told Meredith Vieira, she had no idea it had gone down that way until she and Manganiello were already dating: "It was really funny because I didn't know that had happened until I started really going out with him. Somebody sent me the pictures and I confronted him about it and he was like, 'Yeah, I can't excuse myself. I was there,'" she recalled.

And now they're engaged!

2. The party crash heard 'round the world

The Salahis meet President Obama (Getty Images)
The Salahis meet President Obama (Getty Images)

In November 2009, President Obama threw his very first state dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, the dinner became known as the one that awful couple from The Real Housewives of D.C. crashed. Michaele and Tareq Salahi showed up to the event completely uninvited, made it past two separate security checkpoints, and even met the president himself, mostly with Bravo cameras in tow.

A little less than a year later, The Real Housewives of D.C. premiered, using the infamous White House Party Crashers as the bulk of its promotion. The show was canceled after one season — even with all that drama. That's how awful they were.

1. Al Roker calls for a chance of gastro-storms

Al Roker and wife Deborah Roberts (Getty Images)
Al Roker and wife Deborah Roberts (Getty Images)

In 2013, Al Roker was promoting a book about his weight loss and, hey, there's nothing that'll get attention like a story about a grown man pooping his pants!

As Roker recalled on Dateline, he was at the White House just after having gastric bypass surgery in 2002. As he tells it, he'd eaten something not approved on his post-surgery diet and, as he was walking to the press room, thought he had gas. He didn't: "I pooped my pants. Not horribly, but enough that I knew," Roker said. "I was panicking, so I got to the restroom of the press room, threw out the underwear and just went commando."


If those walls could talk...