The ShondaLand regulars pitch in for a Clinton fundraiser
Real life or TV? A former First Lady-turned-Senator looks to famous friends as she makes a run for the presidency.
In a can’t-make-this-up move, the cast of ABC’s fictional White House drama Scandal is helping real-life presidential contender Hillary Clinton raise cash later this month for her Democratic bid.
Cast members of Shonda Rhimes’ political drama — including its President, ex-First Lady and the White House chief of staff — will join Clinton donors and senior advisers on Wednesday, April 27. It comes just days before the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which co-mingles Hollywood and Washington for a series of high-wattage celebrity events.
An invitation sent to prospective donors promises Tony Goldwyn (Scandal’s Republican President Fitzgerald Grant), Bellamy Young (the series’ deposed First Lady-cum-Senator Mellie Grant), Jeff Perry (cunning aide Cyrus Beene), and Guillermo Diaz and Katie Lowes (political fixers and, well, occasional henchmen) at the private event. Real-life campaign operatives Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, two figures in Clinton’s inner circle, will also be on hand to assure donors that, no, a Clinton White House would not take policy advice from the show known for its far-fetched plot twists.
Notably missing from the roster: show star Kerry Washington, who plays consummate Washington insider (and occasional Presidential mistress) Olivia Pope. She is set to star as Anita Hill in another political drama about the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings, airing on HBO this weekend. Washington, however, appears in a Clinton campaign commercial alongside fellow stars from Rhimes’ ShondaLand shows.
Tickets for the event start at $250 and climb to $5,000 for those who want to meet the cast members — or, you know, actual Washington insiders like Abedin and Sullivan.