Time's Belinda Luscombe interviewed English actress Emily Blunt for the cover story of their special spring Style & Design issue. The profile began: "Emily Blunt has a crush on President Obama. There's no other explanation. Meeting famous people is part of the actress's day job, but when she met the Commander in Chief, she lost it. 'I just laughed hysterically in his face...That's all I could do.'"
Blunt married actor John Krasinski ("The Office") in 2010 at George Clooney's Lake Como villa in Italy. They were introduced to the Obamas after Meryl Streep was celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors in December. Blunt says she was ushered away laughing from the president's presence:
The President mentioned that he liked Blunt's work. Things went downhill from there. "I got ushered away gently by someone, removed from his presence," she recalls. "John said he'd never seen me fall to pieces in the way that I did."
The Time Style & Design table of contents promoted their article: "Equally at ease in couture or in a Judd Apatow comedy, actress Emily Blunt is a model of composure -- that is, unless she's meeting President Obama".
MSN.com reported a version of the incident earlier, on March 4:
I went to shake his hand and he turned to me, and he put his hand on top of mine and he went, 'I love you. I love what you do, I've seen all of your work.' And I started to laugh hysterically in his face and I didn't say anything except I think I said, 'I appreciate that' or 'I appreciate you' or just something really awful and I couldn't stop laughing!"
Her bizarre reaction prompted event officials to cut short the meeting and guide her away -- and Blunt admits it was a complete disaster.
She says, "I don't know what happened, I've never fallen to pieces like that in front of anyone... So I got gently removed. I remember feeling a kinda firm grip on my arm as I was ushered away. And Michelle [Obama]) gave me a hug, I think out of pity, because I was such a mess!"
