Video footage emerged on Wednesday showing Malia Obama, daughter of president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, smoking what some have suggested is a cannabis joint. The eighteen-year-old soon-to-be Harvard student was at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, Illinois last week, and was filmed holding the alleged joint up to her mouth and inhaling.
While the jury is out on what exactly Malia was smoking, she isn’t the first person – or indeed the last – that has had moments she would rather forget caught on camera and immortalised. Here are eight memorable events some of Ireland’s own would rather forget.
Pat Kenny rips up Toys Show tickets on TV
He never lost his temper while being heckled, or getting interrupted on-stage by critical audience members, but a prize winner saying she wasn't "really interested" in tickets she had just won to the Late Late Toy Show drove Pat Kenny slightly over the edge. "When I talked to that woman and she didn't want to come to the Toy Show and she just wanted the shopping spree I thought Scrooge has arrived. Anyway, I did it and it was memorable," Kenny told Ryan Tubridy on 2FM last year.
Newscaster Aengus MacGrianna realises he's live on air
Aengus MacGrianna has had a number of faux pas while presenting RTÉ News, but it's his shocked "What?" that makes this one the moment he'd most like to forget. Caught live applying make-up and fixing his tie ahead of his reading of the news, MacGrianna's embarrassing moment won't be forgotten by many.
Bertie Ahern's suit sings like a canary at G8 talks
Taking "smart casual" to worrying heights, Bertie Ahern showed up wearing canary yellow to a G8 event, with politicians of the day George W Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin all wearing typical business attire. When the debacle occurred in 2004, Louis Copeland said that they had supplied the outfit, "but not necessarily in that order".
Dustin's Eurovision dud
Over the years we've had many Eurovision flops, but none more memorable than Dustin the Turkey's 2008 rendition of Irlande Douze Pointe. The joke was lost on our European counterparts, however, as Dustin failed to make the Eurovision final. "We gave it a great performance. I am disgusted we didn't get through because I really thought we were good enough," Dustin told reporters afterwards. "I urge my fans across Europe to be dignified in defeat. I do not want street riots as I'm a peace-loving bird."
Willie O'Dea takes aim
The infamous photographs of then minister for defence Willie O’Dea pointing a gun at the camera caused quite a stir in 2005. The photographs, which were taken at the Curragh camp in Co Kildare, were displayed across national media at the time.
O’Dea told RTÉ Radio 1 that he had not meant to cause offence and that it had not been his intention to glamorise gun crime.
Spirit medium gives Twink's dog a reading
RTÉ's Today Show saw spirit medium Derek Acorah doing a reading on Twink's dog, Teddy. Acorah told Twink that Teddy was too friendly and was in danger of being taken by a stranger. An interesting insight, especially as Teddy had made national news a year earlier when he was "dognapped". The question is, whether this is the moment that Teddy would most like to forget, or Acorah.
The Ice Man Falleth
Falling over in front of the whole country was certainly a moment that this man has tried to ignore. Known only as 'The Man Who Slipped On Ice', the star of the RTÉ news slot has never come forward for identification after slipping on the ice in the background of an RTÉ news piece. The Youtube clip has more than 1 million views.
That Boyzone appearance on the Late Late Show
An oldie, but a goodie, we can't ignore the dungarees- and suspenders-wearing Boyzone, who guest starred on The Late Late Show before they found fame. But the group weren't singing – they were dancing. Ronan Keating was reportedly so embarrassed by the clip that he tried to buy the copyright from RTÉ. "I think Ronan wanted to put that clip into a tin box and drop it into Dublin Bay so it would never be seen again," the show's presenter Gay Byrne later said. "Anyway he told us how he had tried desperately to buy the copyright of the clip from RTE, but they wouldn't sell it."
