Is It Defamation To Call The Couple Who Got Into White House Dinner 'Party Crashers'?

from the publicity-stunters? dept

THREsq points us to the news that the lawyer for Michaele and Tereq Salahi, most well-known for um... attending a White House State Dinner for which they were not on the attendance list... that if you refer to them as "party crashers," they may sue you for defamation. Good luck with that. As Matthew Belloni notes in that blog post:

Our quick Google search for "white house party crashers" delivers 158,000 results, the first few pages of which all feature the Salahis. And we're pretty sure we've never heard Ms. Salahi, currently starring on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C.," referred to as anything except "White House party crasher Michaele Salahi."

I can't see how any court would hold up a defamation claim here. While the Salahis' lawyer points out that the couple was not charged with anything, that assumes that "party crashing" is only defined by whether or not it is a crime. It is not. Showing up at a party to which you're not on the invite list seems like the textbook definition of party crashing. Now, they're also claiming that they thought they were invited, but even if that's the case, it doesn't change the fact that they were apparently not on the guestlist.

It also seems pretty strange to send out a press release warning journalists of this point... and to do so eight months after the event in question. While the other complaint in the press release is that journalists have suggested the Salahis did this as a publicity stunt for a reality TV show, it really must make you wonder why they're suddenly bringing it back up again, many months later, after pretty much all talk about the couple has died down.

Filed Under: defamation, journalism, michaele salahi, tereq salahi