Chatting up Lionel Richie
WASHINGTON — It’s official: Official Washington has a thing for Lionel Richie.
At the late-night dinner following the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night - a.k.a. the one “school” night when busy Beltway types annually throw caution (and a decent night’s sleep) to the wind and party until the wee hours – the pop star was the biggest draw in the room.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, the former sorta-actress Louise Linton – last spotted in a cringe-y photo op clutching reams of freshly minted dollar bills bearing his signature – were spotted approaching the Dancing on the Ceiling singer at his table like proper fans (albeit ones with security people of their own).
The conversation was lengthier than your usual drive-by meet-and-greet... and, wait, look, they were posing for pictures.
As they left his table, Ritchie planted kisses on each of Linton’s cheeks and shook Mnuchin’s hand. What could the moneyman and the pop star have been talking about, we wondered?
Before we could get close enough to ask, Mnuchin’s security detail closed ranks around them, and the couple sailed out the door. Richie, too, was mobbed, including by National Institutes of Health Directorslash-fanboy Francis Collins, who had been waiting for his moment and brushed past Nicole Ritchie, Lionel Richie’s daughter, who was posing for pictures nearby. “He’s my favorite,” Collins confessed. “I can’t help myself.”
This is the kind of Washington-crushes-on-performers interaction one can expect at the annual dinner – where the guy who’s responsible for controlling global pandemics is suddenly selfie-ing with the co-writer of We Are the World. It’s the kind of night where music legend Stevie Wonder, comedian Dave Chappelle and TV producer Norman Lear huddling together causes a traffic jam, and uber-lobbyist Heather Podesta has to scurry around the crowd to get to her table. Where members of Congress are bowled over by actresses.
Earlier in the evening, Ritchie and Lear, along with singer Gloria Estefan, dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, and rapper/actor LL Cool J, were serenaded with onstage tributes from fellow artists in a ceremony that will air on CBS Dec. 26.
But the after-party was for getting up close and personal.
After the dinner plates were cleared, Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and his wife, Susan Blumenthal, made a beeline for Lear. And de Lavallade greeted a steady stream of admirers. “It’s been an incredible weekend,” she said, noting that her diverse class of honorees, throughout the various dinners and other events of the weekend, has turned into an unlikely group of friends. “We are kind of an oddball bunch,” she said. “But what I like so much about them is that they’re are all good family people. So that’s been nice.”
Gawking aside, the afterparty was also a chance for attendees to dish on the night’s performances. And the consensus from the black-tie-wearing crowd was that the show was successful in steering clear of politics, a touchy subject since President DonaldTrump decided to buck tradition and skip the show as well as the usual preshow reception at the White House after several honorees made clear they wanted nothing to do with the Trumps.
“Wonderful,” was Kennedy Center Board chairman David Rubenstein’s predictably rosy assessment of the program. What did he think was the highlight? “All of them,” he says. “I couldn’t pick.”
For a more nuanced breakdown of the night, we consulted with Sen. Debbie Stabenow,DMich., who is a regular attendee (she usually returns back to her home state on the weekends but makes an annual exception for the Honors) and is therefore something of an expert.
Stabenow noted that unlike in years past, the presenters included family members, like Richie’s daughter Nicole, and Estefan’s daughter, Emily Estefan.
“It really made it more personal,” Stabenow concluded.
Once the production had been dissected, the talent ogled and the mini-desserts devoured, it was well after midnight, and some people were bound for their warm Ubers and sedans. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and his wife, Kelley, were making for the doors when the band struck up the super-romantic Etta James tune At Last.
Suddenly, Kelley Paul put on the brakes, shrugged off her coat, and in a flash, the gentleman from Kentucky was swaying – no sign of those six broken ribs he suffered in a headlinemaking run-in with a neighbour – on the dance floor.
Yeah, it was that kind of night.