The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday was interrupted after shots were fired at the grand ballroom hosting the event. Even as President Donald Trump was not injured and there were no fatalities, the shooting incident created a major scare for the US administration as well as the guests present there. Among the attendees was actor Cheryl Hines, who was at the annual media gala in Washington with her husband, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Cheryl Hines recalls the shooting
Hours after the shooting, Cheryl took to social media to share her first-person account of the incident. Talking to the camera from a bathroom, she recalled, “We were there, and we heard shots, and everybody got under the tables. Nobody knew what was going on.”
Referring to her husband’s security detail, Cheryl added, “Bobby’s security detail surrounded us and took us. They really had to lift me over (the) chairs because I’m in heels and a gown. And they took us through all of the back ways, and we got in the car and left.”
Best known for playing Cheryl David on the sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm, Cheryl is a two-time Emmy nominee. She has also starred in the sitcom Suburgatory and directed a film titled Serious Moonlight. She was most recently seen in the 2024 film Popular Theory in a supporting role. Cheryl began dating RFK Jr in 2011 and married him in 2014. Her husband has been part of the Trump administration since last year, after a failed Presidential election bid in 2024.
All about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting
A man armed with guns and knives stormed the lobby outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner attended by President Donald Trump on Saturday night, charging toward the ballroom in a chaotic encounter with Secret Service agents as guests dived under tables at the sound of shots being fired.
Police believe he opened fire and acted alone, but did not say who his intended target was or describe a motive. The shooting unfolded just outside the vast subterranean ballroom holding thousands of dinner guests, disrupting minutes after it began an annual event meant to honour journalism and the First Amendment that was being especially scrutinised this year because it was the first time since Trump became president that he had attended.
Hours later, Trump addressed the media in a press conference, still dressed in his tuxedo. In the press meet at the White House, he said, “When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone.”