Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Take a good look at this picture above, because it could be the last selfie anyone takes with President Barack Obama.
Last Sunday, the Boston Red Sox visited the White House to celebrate their 2013 World Series title, where all-star player David Ortiz snapped a seemingly spontaneous, innocent selfie with the President. As it turns out, that selfie wasn’t so innocent: Ortiz has marketing deal with Samsung and the pic, which was snapped on a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phone, was a secret publicity stunt as part of Ortiz’s deal with Samsung, New York Daily News reports.
What an honor! Thanks for the #selfie, @BarackObama pic.twitter.com/y5Ww74sEID
— David Ortiz (@davidortiz) April 1, 2014
Upon learning about this, the White House was none too happy. “Perhaps this would be the end of all selfies,” White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said on CBS’ Face the Nation yesterday. Pfeiffer said that neither the President nor the White House were aware of Ortiz’s marketing deal with Samsung and that “someone who uses the President’s likeness to promote a product…that’s a problem with the White House.”
Pfeiffer said that the White House has had conversations with Samsung about this incident, but would not elaborate on what that meant. So, if you’ve ever dreamed of snapping a selfie with POTUS one day, looks like you’re dreams will forever be crushed. You have David Ortiz to thank for that.