Scenes of an unexpected interaction between US First Lady Melania Trump and Oz Pearlman, known as ‘Oz the Mentalist,’ at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner have gone viral.

The dramatic moment, captured just before a commotion inside the Washington Hilton’s banquet hall, shows US President Donald Trump and CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, sitting next to Melania.

On April 25, the annual White House Correspondents’ Association was hosted at the Washington Hilton, where thousands of high-profile personalities, including top US officials, gathered to celebrate the First Amendment. However, the ceremony was disrupted when fears of shots being fired near the ballroom took over.

The POTUS, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice President JD Vance were swiftly whisked off the stage by Secret Service agents as sounds of gunfire forced other eventgoers, including notable journalists and celebrities, to duck under tables for safety. 31-year-old Cole Allen of Torrance, California, has since been identified as the suspect, who ran past Secret Service on Saturday, and taken into custody.

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Melania’s reaction goes viral

A post capturing the first lady’s reaction amid the chaos is especially gaining big numbers on X. Plugging the video of the development, the tweet showed Pearlman possibly playing his tricks. With both Melania and Donald Trump invested in his performance, the mentalist is seen holding up a card, only for his efforts to be interrupted mid-way.

Melania’s attention also immediately drifts away to the scene unfolding in front of her, as she and the POTUS’ seats on the stage face the rest of the room.

After being safely evacuated from the location, US President Donald Trump admitted at a press briefing that while “heard a noise” at the Hilton, he thought it was a “tray going down.” He then credited his wife for being “very cognisant” of what happened.

“And some people really understood that pretty quickly, other people didn’t,” Trump said, adding, Melania “knew immediately what happened.”

Mentalist spotted beside Melania Trump wanted to read Trump’s mind

Pearlman, who appeared to have been performing a mind-boggling trick to entertain the first couple, merely seconds before chaos erupted, also took to his Instagram Stories to share his personal account of the experience.

As an eyewitness, the celebrity mentalist opened up about the frightening incident, saying, “Thank you all for checking on me. I am ok and thank God everyone is alright!”

At the same time, Pearlman confirmed he “was in the middle of performing for the President and First Lady when I looked up to see a commotion, thought it was a bomb about to go off or shots fired.”

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Revealing that he was merely a few feet away from Trump at the time, Pearlman wrote, “We hit the deck fast and Secret Service acted decisively and professionally to protect us all.”

“We laid on the ground, I was a couple feet away from President Trump, eyes locked with one another. It was likely the scariest moment of my life and will never forget it. So happy everyone is ok,” he added.

Curious to find out if he could read Trump’s mind, Oz Pearlman penned a column for The Spectator. “My goal is to have Donald Trump take part – and to save the best for last. If I could read only one mind in this world, it would be that of the most powerful person in the world,” he wrote ahead of the gala.

“No one has ever really managed to predict what the President will say or do or think next. Maybe I will finally get a chance to unlock that puzzle. Trump is a figure unlike any other, and also in some ways the hardest to read. I think that’s by design. He has such an authenticity. You know that there is no way he would be in on what I’m doing. Everyone knows there is no motivating factor or anything I could do to make him pretend or act or do anything but be who he truly is.”