Thanks to Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, looks like selfies with the president may be shut down for good.
During the Red Sox's official visit to the White House the designated hitter took what appeared to be an impromptu photo with the POTUS holding up an Obama baseball jersey. Turns out that Big Papi has a deal with the Samsung to help promote the Galaxy Note 3 phone that includes performing public relations stunts, the New York Daily News reports.
"Maybe this will be the end of all selfies," White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer said about the incident Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. "(Obama) obviously didn't know anything about Samsung's connection to this. Someone who uses the President’s likeness to promote a product… that's a problem with the White House," Pfeiffer added. "We've had conversations with Samsung about this and have expressed our concerns."
After the photo, Samsung revealed the marketing deal it has with Ortiz and admitted that company officials "worked with David and the team on how to share images with fans," the Daily News reports.
Ortiz tweeted the selfie and some 38,000 retweets later, including one by the official Samsung account — to the company’s more than 5.2 million Twitter followers.
This isn't the first time that Samsung has used the power of the selfie to help move product, last month, during the Academy Awards, host Ellen DeGeneres used her Samsung Galaxy Note 3, to take and tweet a selfie of a group of A-list actors that quickly became the most re-tweeted post of all time.
And who could forget "selfie-gate" in December when President Obama, Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning, and British Prime Minister David Cameron snapped a photo of themselves at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela which was heavily criticized afterward.
Read more at the New York Daily News.