Aubrey Plaza Recalls Her ‘Bulls**t’ Youth Conference at Age 16 with Joe Biden

attends the premiere of NBC's Parks & Recreation hosted by Kahlua held at My Hous
Alexandra Wyman/WireImage/MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Paul Bois

Actress Aubrey Plaza recently recalled a “bullshit” youth conference she attended at age 16 that included then-Senator Joe Biden. A fellow native of Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, Plaza recalled to The New Yorker how she actually has met Joe Biden several times throughout her life, starting when she attended a “Joe Biden youth-leadership conference.”

“The whole point of the conference was to allow students to speak out on different issues,” the Parks & Recreation star explained. “They shuttled us from room to room, and there was a different speaker in each room, and it was all leading up to this climax where we were going to sit in the auditorium, and Joe himself was going to get up on stage and give his speech.”

Aubrey Plaza recalled feeling “really angry” about how the event unfolded as students basically sat around in the audience and were unable to share their thoughts.

“I had a stare-down with Joe Biden from the audience, because he asked how it went, and I raised my hand immediately,” she recalled. “I was, like, ‘It’s bullshit. This conference sucks. You didn’t let us talk. This was supposed to be about the students.'”

“He did not like it,” Plaza continued. “I remember his face got really red. He used to get really fiery when he would make speeches. It was crazy.”

According to Plaza, she later reconnected with Biden years later when filming an episode of Parks and Recreation, which featured an appearance from then-Vice President Joe Biden.

“Before the tour, I saw him, and he knew my name,” she said. “He always tells me the same story. His first wife went to the same high school that I went to, so he always tells me about how he used to wait outside the convent for her, because it’s an all-girls Catholic school — and it’s a very sweet story, but I’ve heard it a lot. I was, like, ‘I know, Joe! She went to Ursuline!'”

During a tour of Biden’s office, however, Aubrey Plaza said she learned that Joe Biden actually never remembered her at all and needed a reminder from one of his staffers.

“I saw a note on his desk that had been written by his assistant on official White House stationery that said, ‘Aubrey Plaza’ — underlined — ‘Wilmington, Delaware. You met her at the Joe Biden youth-leadership conference when she was 16,'” she said. “I was, like, ‘I knew it! He doesn’t remember me at all!'”

I pocketed it, and Mike Schur, the creator of Parks and Rec, was horrified,” she said. “He was like, ‘You cannot steal from the White House!’ And I was like, ‘I don’t give a s—! I know what he did! He didn’t know me!'”

Plaza said she lost the paper and now wishes she kept it.

“Can you imagine if I’d kept it? I could’ve framed it or sold it. Now he’s the President — I had no idea,” she said. “But, yeah, I stole it right off his desk. And there’s got to be cameras in the White House. But they didn’t do anything to me.”

Whatever Plaza’s experience with the president, the two at least appear to have a positive relationship, considering that he gave her a public shoutout after she had been voted most famous person from Delaware.

“I beat Joe — this was before he was the President, but he didn’t get second place. He got, like, sixth place,” she said. “It was me, maybe Valerie Bertinelli, and Henry Heimlich, the guy who created the Heimlich maneuver. I’m pretty sure it was us three.”

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