Ellen Barred From Entering White House Without ID

Even Medal of Freedom honorees need ID to get into the White House.

Ellen DeGeneres revealed on Twitter that she forgot her identification and was stuck outside before the ceremony. She eventually made her way in, and both she and President Barack Obama got choked up at the event.

"In 1997, after coming out herself, DeGeneres made TV history when her character on Ellen revealed she was a lesbian. In her work and in her life, she has been a passionate advocate for equality and fairness," said a statement issued by the president.

"In a career spanning three decades, Ellen DeGeneres has lifted our spirits and brought joy to our lives as a stand-up comic, actor and television star," a White House aide gushed about the Finding Dory (2016) star (via Us Weekly). "At a pivotal moment, her courage and candor helped change the hearts and minds of millions of Americans, accelerating our nation's constant drive toward equality and acceptance for all. Ellen DeGeneres has showed us that a single individual can make the world a more fun, more open, more loving place, so long as we just keep swimming."

At the induction, Obama told the crowd (via Fortune), "It's easy to forget now, when we've come so far, where now marriage is equal under the law, just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was not just for the LGBT community, but for all of us to see somebody so full of kindness and light—somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbor or our colleague or our sister—challenge our own assumptions, remind us that we have more in common than we realize, push our country in the direction of justice." He continued, "What an incredible burden it was to bear, to risk your career like that. People don't do that very often."

The president concluded (via The New York Times), "It's like Ellen says: 'We all want a tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole,' which really makes no sense to me, but I thought it would break the mood because I was getting kind of choked up." Aww, POTUS!