Barack Obama and Tom Hanks can’t turn down a holiday in the sun together.
The 44th president, 61, as well as former first lady Michelle Obama, 59, and their daughters, Sasha, 22, and Malia, 24, met up with some famous friends for lunch on the Greek Island of Sifnos, as captured in photos obtained by the Daily Mail.
The family were spotted dining seaside with Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson while both parties enjoyed a summer outing on the Aegean Sea.
An anonymous restaurant patron who witnessed the star-studded lunch told the Mail, “I’m not one to get very starstruck, but seeing Obama in the flesh and so close was pretty surreal.” They added, “Their presence was pretty overwhelming and that definitely wasn’t lessened by the excessive security – who we even had to ask if we could use the restroom.”
The former president was in Greece for a gathering of the Obama Foundation global young leaders — a week-long leadership and cultural experience in Athens. Hanks and Wilson became citizens of the country in 2020 after Wilson learned of her Greek ancestry in a 2012 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and regularly spend time there.
The group were reportedly shuttled to the picturesque restaurant from a yacht docked nearby, according to the Mail. And it’s not the first time the famous friends have met up aboard a luxury ship.
Barack, Michelle and Hanks previously enjoyed a vacation outing aboard billionaire music mogul Dave Geffen’s personal yacht in French Polynesia in April 2017. At that glamorous meetup, they were also joined by Oprah and Bruce Springsteen.
Geffen’s 450-foot vessel, The Rising Sun, was the 11th largest yacht in the world at the time and valued at an estimated $300 million.
The group enjoyed lunch on Vanilla Island, made a stop at Le Taha’a Island and continued to Bora Bora. Oprah joked to PEOPLE that the details of their voyage couldn’t be shared. “What happens on the boat, stays on the boat,” she said. But Hanks was happy to chat about the hangout on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“Look, imagine what it could’ve been like it, triple it. It was off the scale, fantastic,” the actor revealed. And the famous five didn’t just sit around on the boat all day.
Hanks shared he and the former president and first lady rented bikes to sightsee on shore. While the group, including the Secret Service, had “an array of bikes” to choose from, the Oscar winner and Medal of Freedom recipient was stuck with a far-from-ideal ride.
“It was rusted like all over, it only had one gear … all the others were like mountain bikes … it was so bad,” Hanks recalled.
And as for what kind of conversations Oprah and Springsteen had with the Obamas, Hanks remembered trying to get the president to divulge “classified” information. “I’d like to share a ton of stories from it, but they’re classified,” Obama told Hanks.
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