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Aubrey Plaza Explains Why She Once Brazenly Stole A Note Right Off Biden's White House Desk

The two native Delawareans had a few turbulent interactions over the years, starting when Plaza was a teenager.

Aubrey Plaza; Joe Biden
Axelle Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Fresh off her success on the latest season of The White Lotus, actor Aubrey Plaza revealed during an interview with The New Yorker she once stole a note right off then Vice President Joe Biden's White House desk.

The two native Delawareans had a few turbulent interactions over the years, starting when Plaza was a teenager and was one of the attendees at Biden's youth leadership conference.

Plaza compared her behavior at the time to that of Tracy Flick—the ambitious high school student played by Reese Witherspoon in Election.

She said she was "really angry about the conference":

“I was really angry about the conference—and, in fact, I had a stare-down with Joe Biden from the audience, because he asked how it went, and I raised my hand immediately, and I was, like, ‘It’s bullsh*t'."
"'This conference sucks. You didn’t let us talk. This was supposed to be about the students'."
“I was always trying to rabble-rouse at that point. And he did not like it. I remember his face got really red. He used to get really fiery when he would make speeches. It was crazy.”

Plaza later encountered Biden again—and the note in question—when she went to film an episode of Parks and Recreation at the White House when Biden was Vice President.

During a tour of the White House, Plaza said she spotted a note on Biden's desk that included her name, “Wilmington, Delaware” and the fact the two encountered each other at his conference.

She added:

“And I was, like, ‘I knew it! He doesn’t remember me at all!’ But that’s how politicians are, you know? I pocketed it, and Mike Schur, the creator of Parks and Rec, was horrified."
“He was, like, ‘You cannot steal from the White House!’ And I was, like, ‘I don’t give a sh*t! I know what he did! He didn’t know me!’”

Chuckling she "stole [the note] right off his desk" and "there’s got to be cameras in the White House [but] they didn’t do anything to me," Plaza said she later lost the note otherwise she would have framed it or sold it.

Plaza's story quickly went viral.

The jokes pretty much wrote themselves.


Plaza previously joked about her connection to Biden.

During her Saturday Night Live appearance last month, Plaza boasted about winning an online poll that determined she was the most famous person from Delaware and joked Biden was "livid" about the result.

Cue a video from Biden himself, who quipped:

“Aubrey, you’re the most famous person out of Delaware, and there’s no question about that. We’re just grateful you made it out of The White Lotus alive.”

You can see the moment below.

It's pretty clear the two know this is all in good fun and fans can't get enough.




Don't be too put off by Plaza's story, however.

She's known for being a little kooky and unconventional.

In her interview with The New Yorker, Plaza revealed she got her big break on Parks and Recreation after landing in a meeting with Parks’ Mike Schur and Greg Daniels while in Los Angeles to test for a role in the film Funny People.

Plaza said she was "wearing jean shorts and just acting weird, according to Mike Schur," and she "didn’t know how meaningful the meeting was," which resulted in her playing the similarly kooky and abrasive April Ludgate for seven seasons.