Former President Barack Obama turned 60 on Wednesday and planned to celebrate with a “big” birthday party this weekend on Martha’s Vineyard.
Former Obama administration officials, Democratic donors and celebrities had been planning to attend the Saturday event, but the former president announced he was canceling the event after coronavirus cases surged.
“Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,” Hannah Hankins, a spokeswoman for the former president, said in a statement Wednesday morning, according to The New York Times. “He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon.”
Obama, according to The Hill, had invited hundreds of his friends to his and wife Michelle’s 30-acre property in Massachusetts. The Obamas bought the $11 million mansion in 2019.
George Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey were expected to attend before the event was canceled, The New York Post reported.
“They’ve been concerned about the virus from the beginning, asking invited guests if they had been vaccinated, requesting that they get a test proximate to the event,” David Axelrod, a former top Obama adviser, told The New York Times. “But when this was planned, the situation was quite different. So they responded to the changing circumstances.”
Late last month, the NBA announced Obama had acquired a stake in the NBA’s Africa business through his foundation. The Associated Press reported Obama will have a minority equity stake in NBA Africa, a new entity set up this year to run all the league’s business on the continent and will use his stake to fund the Obama Foundation’s youth and leadership programs in Africa.
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