{"id":233985,"date":"2026-04-11T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/jenna-ortegas-childhood-crush-on-former-us-president-barack-obama-was-really-ambition\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:00:13","slug":"jenna-ortegas-childhood-crush-on-former-us-president-barack-obama-was-really-ambition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/jenna-ortegas-childhood-crush-on-former-us-president-barack-obama-was-really-ambition\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenna Ortega&#8217;s childhood &#8216;crush&#8217; on former US President Barack Obama was really ambition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-04-11\" datetime=\"1775944813\" pubdate=\"\">11 April 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p>Jenna Ortega thought she had a childhood crush on former US President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/barack-obama\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,barack-obama\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barack Obama<\/a> &#8211; until she later realised she wanted his job.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">Actress Jenna Ortega<\/p>\n<p>The 64-year-old politician was inaugurated in January 2009, and the Obama administration fuelled a six-year-old Jenna&#8217;s desire to follow in Barack&#8217;s footsteps, long before she became a successful actress.<\/p>\n<p>Appearing on the latest episode of the Big Bro with Kid Cudi podcast, the Wednesday star, 23, revealed: &#8220;When I was younger, I wanted to do everything, and I thought I was going to do everything.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I was six, I was really into politics, and Obama got inaugurated.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jenna even reached out to democrat Barack &#8211; who was re-elected in November 2012 for his second term from 2013 until 2017, when he was replaced as president by 79-year-old republican Donald Trump. <\/p>\n<p>\nShe continued: &#8220;I would write him letters, &#8216;Hey! Love your work. Can I come to the White House.&#8217; And he never responded.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nAs a youngster, Jenna always thought she fancied Barack &#8211; but later learned she just wanted to be President of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Scream VI cast member admitted: &#8220;I used to think it was a crush of some sort, but I just wanted his job. I wanted to go to the White House to get an understanding of OK, the Oval Office is going to be my space. I need to familiarise myself with codes and whatnot.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Yeah, he never responded to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nBarack&#8217;s radio silence motivated the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice entertainer to find another way to reach the former president &#8211; 72-year-old media mogul Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n<p>\nJenna said: &#8220;I started writing to Oprah because I saw a photo of them together in a magazine, and I was like, &#8216;Hey Oprah, I know you know Obama. He&#8217;s not getting back to me.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nWith her dreams of being president not working out, Jenna turned her focus to becoming an astronaut.<\/p>\n<p>\nBut the Iron Man 3 alum soon realised that it &#8220;seemed really difficult and long run&#8221; and decided to pursue acting.<\/p>\n<p>\nJenna found success as an actress, and some of her early notable roles included Richie Rich (Darcy), Jane the Virgin (Young Jane) and Stuck in the Middle (Harley Diaz).<\/p>\n<p>\nBut the star almost &#8220;called it quits&#8221; in acting before landing her role as Ellie Alves in the second season of the Netflix thriller, You.<\/p>\n<p>\nJenna said: &#8220;I didn\u2019t know what else I was gonna do. I\u2019ve never really considered anything else, more so recently, just out of sake of curiosity and wanting another life experience.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;But when I was a teenager, I\u2019d gotten off a children\u2019s show, and I didn\u2019t know what I was going to do. I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn\u2019t know who I was.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to. I was starting high school, and \u2018it was a good run\u2019 sort of thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nJenna got as far as spending &#8220;a few months&#8221; chatting about the situation with her team, but You was enough to change her mind.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe recalled: &#8220;We had talked about it for a few months with my team.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;And then, I think I booked that show You, and then I went on that set, and I loved it and had the best time. I thought, &#8216;Yeah, there\u2019s no way I could let this go.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/jenna-ortegas-childhood-crush-former-president-barack-obama-really-ambition-1440577.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11 April 2026 Jenna Ortega thought she had a childhood crush on former US President Barack Obama &#8211; until she later realised she wanted his job. Actress Jenna Ortega The 64-year-old politician was inaugurated in January 2009, and the Obama administration fuelled a six-year-old Jenna&#8217;s desire to follow in Barack&#8217;s footsteps, long before she became [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[354,389,4819,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-233985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-jenna-ortega","10":"tag-kid-cudi","11":"tag-oprah-winfrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}