Since the Women’s March last year, famous faces (Madonna! Julia Roberts! Charlize Theron!) seem as comfortable storming the streets of Washington as they are walking the red carpets of Hollywood. At Saturday’s March for Our Lives, a nationwide protest over gun violence, the A-listers and the activists got even closer.
VIP suites, a necessity at awards shows and film festivals, are now de rigueur for demonstrations, too, especially when some of the biggest celebrities on the planet are flying in with their own signs. Enter Washington power lunch spot Charlie Palmer Steak, just blocks from the protest site. On Saturday, the steakhouse doubled as the march’s hospitality suite. Everyone was there. Everyone.
Hey, look, there’s George and Amal Clooney, who donated $500,000 to the rally, snapping photos with five students from Parkland, Fla. The student activists, survivors of the school massacre there last month, appeared to know the Clooneys well, according to our source in the room. “They were calling him George,” our source said, and the group apparently alluded to previous conversations.
Oh, and there’s Cher, who responded to a fan singing to her with a smile and a photo. “The kids were all over George and Amal,” our source said, “but the parents were all over Cher.”
Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in the room happened between former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a survivor of gun violence, and 15-year-old Kyle Laman, a Parkland student who was shot in the ankle during the attack. The pair talked about their shared experience, we’re told, and Laman apparently was particularly interested in Giffords’s husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.
“Kyle kept asking Mark questions about going into space. The little kid in him came out,” our source said.
All day Saturday, the restaurant served as a VIP way station for boldfacers, who popped in between speeches and performances. The list of big names included Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West and their elder daughter, North; singer Ariana Grande; singer Jennifer Hudson; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); rapper Common; “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon; singer Miley Cyrus, who was spotted dining out Friday on H Street; singer Demi Lovato; actress Glenn Close; Katie Couric; Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star and onetime friend of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).
