Hey, Johnny Depp is always the people's choice. Why not the president's choice, as well?
So it's fittingly odd and unusual that a visit the movie star made to the White House two years ago—in full Mad Hatter regalia, no less—wasn't reported until now.
Curiouser and curiouser...
It turns out that Depp, Tim Burton and Mia Wasikowska made appearances at the White House's Alice in Wonderland-themed Halloween party in 2009, where roughly 2,000 kids frolicked on the North Lawn and got to see Barack and Michelle Obama.
But only 200 very special guests made it inside the White House for an invitation-only party featuring the Alice VIPS, all of whom dressed for the occasion. (Burton appears to have gone as the Knave of Hearts.) And considering Alice in Wonderland didn't hit theaters until March 2010, the insiders got quite the up-close-and-personal sneak preview.
Dueling versions of this so-called hush-hush event are now swirling in the media, after Jody Kantor supposedly blew the lid off the party in her new book, The Obamas, writing, "White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans—or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care—that the event was not discussed publicly and Burton's and Depp's contributions went unacknowledged."
White House press secretary Jay Carney denies that hosting Depp & Co. was some kind of covert op, telling the Washington Post, "This was an event for military children and their families inside the White House, where the press came, photographs were taken."
Meanwhile, another White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, says he doesn't know who took the photo of the Obamas with Depp, Burton and Wasikowska that's now making the rounds, because the first family didn't issue any high-profile pics from the event themselves.
So it turns out the Obamas are just like us—huge Johnny Depp fans. Though we would have tweeted the heck out of this party.