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"Now that brings me to the Liberal Party. During the last few days, I gather that there have been some ill-natured jokes about their new symbol, a bird... Politics is a Serious Business, and one should not lower the tone unduly, so I will say only this of the Liberal Democrats' new symbol and the party it symbolizes: This is an ex-parrot... And Now For Something Completely Different."
— Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party Conference, 1990note 
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    Regular politicians and government officials 
  • US Democrat and former US Vice President Al Gore is a member of the MST3k Information Club. He is also an avowed fan of Frank Zappa, stating so on the congressional record during the PMRC hearings, and a clip of the statement was used by Zappa himself in an audio collage on the hearings, available on Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Additionally, he and his ex-wife, Tipper Gore, are both Deadheads, with Gore inviting the band to his house in the 1990s. Gore also had a couple of guest appearances on Futurama. Although how much of that is nerdity and how much is the fact that his daughter is one of the writers is uncertain. But he did include a clip of Futurama in his environmental and Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and said that Futurama is his favorite show.
  • US Democrat and former senator of Vermont Patrick Leahy is a huge Batman fan. In fact, at his own request, he lent his voice to an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, and had cameos in Batman Returns, Batman & Robin, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises (here he is in TDK), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He gets props for donating the money he earned from those gigs to the Montpellier public library.
  • US Democratic politician, former Senator of Minnesota and former US Vice President Walter Mondale was a fan of Monty Python.
  • US Democrat and Colorado Governor Jared Polis not only fought SOPA / Protect IP when he was serving in the US House of Representatives, but is an avid League of Legends player who posts on the official forums. (He claims he's partial to Anivia and Maokai, for those who are curious.)
  • Former US Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has quoted Pokémon 2000 in debates and and his announcement of dropping out of the campaign (where he did actually mention it was from Pokémon), and his 9-9-9 plan may have been inspired by SimCity. Whether he's a nerd or just has a nerd in the family he's soaked this stuff in from is uncertain, however, and an interview where he seemed to say that Superman used Kryptonite like Batman used gadgets would make the latter seem more probable.
  • Canadian social democratic politician Jack Layton, once the former leader of the Canadian Official Opposition, as well as his wife and fellow member of parliament Olivia Chow, were both Trekkies. Yes, that is indeed him at a Trekkie convention. In a custom-tailored Starfleet uniform.
  • Former First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond, a self-described Star Trek "obsessive," was awarded an honourary membership of the Starfleet fan organisation in 2010.
  • Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, arch-conservative Republican politician, activist, pundit, and Presidential candidate, spends much of his free time reading spy novels and reviewing them on Amazon. A somewhat tame example, but a lot more than you'd expect from a 67-year-old Southerner. And never let it be said that his reviews are half-assed; at one point, he was an Amazon Top 500 Reviewer.
    • In addition to reviewing books, he also writes them. Not just the typical political punditry books, either, but best-selling Civil War Alternate History novels. It's about as close to Fan Fiction as can be without quite going over.
    • He is obsessed with dinosaurs. During his campaign for the Republican nomination for president in the 2012 election, he said that those who would benefit from his policies were "people who like dinosaurs." There was a cast was made from a T-Rex skull from the Smithsonian mounted in his office during his time as Speaker of the House.
    • Newt is also known to be a huge Star Wars and sci-fi buff. So much so that when the History Channel did a documentary about the literary and mythical themes of Star Wars, Newt was one of the big-name fans who appeared throughout the documentary giving commentary about his favorite aspects of the saga. He also made the comment that "Star Wars proves that there is real evil in the world and that it can be defeated", which you can either consider to be funny, ironic, hypocritical or a tad disturbing.
    • Newt is also an avid Zoological aficionado. He grew up visiting the Philadelphia Zoo as a child and wanted to be a zookeeper growing up. When he was 12 he petitioned that his small town in Pennsylvania have a Zoo. It didn't succeed, but he never outgrew his passion for Zoos.
  • In 2012, the German Pirate Party experienced a huge wave of popularity and won seats in several state parliaments. Started as a protest movement against outdated copyright laws and inadequate handling of information technology by politics, it consists of a great number of young academics and engineers, making it the quintessential Nerd Party. This is not helped at all by the fact that one of its most prominent members, Christopher Lauer, is a highly gifted physicist and historian of science and technology who is affected by ADD. But there's a good chance that he's invited to talk shows and interviews because of that fact.
    • Their Berlin faction also has Ponytime.
  • A 2012 candidate for the Maine state senate was actually attacked by her opponent for playing World of Warcraft. When she won, she promptly linked to a familiar theme on her Facebook page.
  • In Britain, Labour MP Tom Watson is a huge fan of video games, like Batman Arkham City and Halo, as well as adventure games such as Fighting Fantasy (he won a competition to have his name appear in the 30th anniversary book, Blood of the Zombies). He's also a fan of Mark Hamill.
  • Former Speaker of the House and Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan is well known to be a huge nerd. He's an eager policy wonk who geeks out about policy details relating to the mathematics of the federal deficit and other issues, making him one of the best known math geeks in Congress. He is also on record calling Monty Python and the Holy Grail his favorite movie, and Radiohead his favorite band. He is also a fan of Rage Against the Machine, which is odd given the left-leaning nature of their songs.
  • US Republican and former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie (R) is an obsessive fan of Bruce Springsteen. Like world's biggest fan level of obsessive. Since the two of them have opposite politics (Springsteen is a well-known liberal Democrat, and was a prominent supporter of Barack Obama's 2008 run), all of Christie's attempts to reach out to the Boss have sunk like a lead balloon. At least until Hurricane Sandy, when Springsteen gave a few shoutouts to the Governor for his efforts to get assistance for the devastated Jersey Shore.note  Reports have it that the squeeing could be heard from New York to Baltimore.
  • In 2003, San Jose publication The Wave administered the Voight-Kampff test on San Francisco's current Mayoral candidates. Generally, the candidates were confused but willing to go along with it... Only US Democratic politician and gay rights activist Tom Ammiano actually recognized it as being from Blade Runner.
  • Libertarian leaning Republican congressman Ron Paul has compared neo-conservatives to Orcs for their aggressive foreign policy. He has also made references to a Batman comic book where Batman rescues the work of von Mises from the Nazis.
  • Rick Snyder, former Republican Governor of Michigan, is a huge fan of Star Wars, MythBusters, Good Eats, and classic rock. He even calls himself a nerd in his own campaign tagline. With a resume like that, he naturally won the election.
  • US Republican politician and Governor of Utah John Huntsman is a fan of Captain Beefheart.
  • British Conservative MP Mike Weatherley is a World of Warcraft player, as best shown when he sparked a debate about whether the theft of in-game items, paid for with real money, counted as an actual crime.
  • US Republican and Senator of Alaska Ted Stevens was known to be a huge comic book nerd and often wore an Hulk tie on the Senate floor.
  • Chuck Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa, is a Japonophile who used Gratuitous Japanese to imply that the people responsible for the mortgage crisis should take the honourable samurai way out.
  • US Republican, Senator of Arizona and former presidential candidate John McCain was a fan of 24 and appeared in an uncredited split-second cameo as a CTU suit. He has also said on-record that his favorite superhero is Batman. In a speech on the floor of the Senate, McCain used a rather stiff reference to The Lord of the Rings to criticize some fellow Republicans for, as he saw it, playing at being heroes. The kicker was when one that he named, former Senate candidate Sharon Angle, responded in kind and took being called a Hobbit as a badge of honor. His favorite movie was Viva Zapata!, because, as he told it: "It's a heroic tale of a person who sacrificed everything for what he believed in and there's some of the most moving scenes in that movie that I've ever seen."
    • Both McCain as well as former Secretary of State Colin Powell were proud fans of Abba.
  • US Democrat politician Alan Grayson, in reference to Dick Cheney, recently said "On the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called STFU." He recently sent out a fundraising email based entirely around how the recent Green Lantern (2011) film could have been better if it had included an iconic exchange from the Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams run on the comic.
  • US Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia is an admitted nerd with a well-preserved history on Twitter nerdy ramblings about everything from musical theater to speculating about the possibility of Thrawn being in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.
  • It's probably not surprising that Edward Snowden (the man who leaked the NSA documents detailing American intelligence data collection) is a computer geek, given his profession. It's perhaps more notable that he is a serious fan of anime and role-playing video games.
  • Italian politician and novelist Niccolò Machiavelli, best known for The Prince, used to dress up in a toga and pretend to be a Roman, imagining himself in the Roman Senate and other surprisingly nerdy things for a man with a Magnificent Bastard reputation.
  • Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was a huge film fan and especially liked Gone with the Wind and Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It has been said that Hitler himself also liked Disney cartoons and some supposedly hand drawn drawings of Disney characters by Hitler have surfaced, but their authenticity has not been confirmed. Also all American movies were banned in Nazi occupied Europe after the war started, so politics and ideology still came before everything else. Hitler and Goebbels' fondness for Snow White can be easily explained though: it was a fairy tale that the German The Brothers Grimm had collected.
  • Former (due to a very unfortunate incident) IMF Chairman Dominique Strauss Kahn is a champion chess player and he owns an iPad. Which he uses mostly to play chess.
    • In a 1992 episode of Desert Island Discs British Conservative Party politician Norman Tebbit choose music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Giuseppe Verdi, Gustav Holst, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frank Sinatra as his favorites. He was also, despite being mercilessly mocked on the show, a fan of Spitting Image.
      • Two other British politicians who liked Spitting Image despite being regular targets in the program were Labour politician Roy Hattersley and British Conservative Party politician Edwina Currie, who was Minister of Health (1986-1988) under Thatcher. They both appeared in a lot of interviews and documentaries about the show. Hattersley grow very fond of his puppet, despite being portrayed of having a mouth like a birdbath. In Currie's case her love for the show is understandable. Her portrayal as an evil vampire actually made her more notable to the British public. Also bear in mind that many high profile celebrities, including the British Royal Family and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, absolutely despised the show, so Tebbit, Hattersley and Currie at least showed some sense of comedy.
  • Curitiba City Hall often makes references to movies, video games and cartoons when posting news on its Facebook page.
  • Both former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former US President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty once appeared as special guests in a 1983 episode of Dynasty.
  • British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock appeared in a music video by comedienne Tracey Ullman: "My Guy's Mad At Me". During a 1998 broadcast of Desert Island Discs he named Giuseppe Verdi, Georges Bizet, Johannes Brahms, Simon & Garfunkel, John Lennon and Dory Previn among his favorite music.
  • US Republican politician and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney cited Raiders of the Lost Ark and O Brother, Where Art Thou? as his two favorite movies of all time on his Facebook page.
  • US Republican politician and former Vice President Dan Quayle named Ferris Bueller's Day Off his favorite movie, because "it reminded me of my time in school." Which is a strange thing to say considering Ferris actually skips school for most of the story. Dan Quayle later admitted to a journalist that "I myself never skipped school more than twice - but I often ran interference for those who often skipped school!"
  • Former British Conservative Party leader William Hague guest starred on a 2001 episode of Desert Island Discs where he choose music by Fryderyk Chopin, Edward Elgar, Bryn Terfel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Scott Hamilton, Gene Harris, Walking Tim and Frank Sinatra as his favorite records.
  • In a 1971 episode of Desert Island Discs British politician Glenda Jackson choose music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Igor Stravinsky, Antonín Dvořák, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ella Fitzgerald and Dmitri Shostakovich, with her favorite book "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. She appeared again on the show in 1998 when she choose music by Ike And Tina Turner, Igor Stravinsky, Elvis Presley, John Adams, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, Stevie Wonder and Michael Tippett as her favorite records.
  • In a 1989 episode of Desert Island Discs controversial British Conservative Party politician Enoch Powell, known for his 1968 anti-immigrational "Rivers of Blood" speech choose music by Joseph Haydn, three pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven and four pieces by Richard Wagner.
  • Labour politician Tony Benn choose music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Johann Sebastian Bach, Flanders & Swann, Felix Mendelssohn, Joan Baez, Mahalia Jackson, Roy Bailey, Stephen Benn in a 1989 episode of Desert Island Discs and "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx as his favorite book.
  • US Republican politician Rudolph Giuliani, who famously was major of New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, regularly appeared on Saturday Night Live playing a cab driver complaining about New York and uttering the line "Friggin' Giuliani". He seems to like TV shows, as he played himself in episodes of Seinfeld, Mad About You, Dellaventura, Eddie, Cosby, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, Law & Order and Hannity. Together with Tony Blair he is thus far the only politician to ever accept a guest spot on The Simpsons, more specifically in the episode "Stop Or My Dog Will Shoot". He is also a big fan of Opera [1]. Giuliani also played himself in comedy movies like Anger Management (2003). He also once performed in drag as Marilyn Monroe at the Inner Circle dinner on March 8, 1997. Alongside actress Julie Andrews. We are NOT making this up: [2]
  • French far right politician Jean-Marie LePen reportedly loved the comic strip "Super Dupond" by Jacques Lob, Gotlib, Alexis and Jean Solé. The series is about a stereotypical chauvinist and xenophobic French Jerk fighting for everything French. LePen clearly didn't understand the comic strip was meant to be a Satire of such people. Disgusted by his approval, the creators eventually terminated the series.
  • Senator Scott Ludlam, deputy leader of the Australia Australian]] Greens, plays role-playing games, board games, and video games, and participated in a live D&D session at PAX Australia 2015 (he brought his own dice).
  • Texas Senator and 2016 Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a movie buff whose favorite movie is The Princess Bride, which he quotes a lot. In addition, he is a huge Star Wars fan and has admitted that he cried during an emotional scene in The Force Awakens. He's also a fan of House of Cards (US), loves the Godfather movies (all three!), and does voice impressions.
    • In Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearings for appointment to the Supreme Court, Senator Cruz asked Judge Gorsuch for "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything". Gorsuch correctly answered, "42."
    • Surprisingly, in spite of his criticisms of violent video games and Activision-Blizzard's shady business practices, he himself is actually a gamer. And has admitted to sometimes spending a fair amount of money on loot boxes and microtransactions within the various games he plays.
  • A photo surfaced of 2016 Presidential candidiate Hillary Clinton playing a Game Boy in 1993, which she said she'd become addicted to when dealing with the death of her father. On the 2016 campaign trail, she said she liked to watch cat videos.
  • President Trump's Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, is a genuine anime otaku, and even cosplayer, and regularly attended anime conventions.
    • While Trump was reportedly not impressed with Melissa McCarthy and her SNL portrayal of "Spicey", Spicer gave Approval of God the next day and said his one complaint was his gum addiction was blown way out of proportion. McCarthy in turn, worked this into a follow up sketch. Spicer is also known for his Spartan office space and lack of personal mementos. Reportedly the only hints that someone occupies his White House office are the picture of his wife and a Super-Soaker of the exact same make and model as the one used in one Gag in the SNL sketch. It's even filled with a liquid which he (maybe) jokingly claims is Soapy Water.
    • Spicer appeared on-stage at the 2017 Emmy Awards to lampoon himself, announcing, "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys—"period!" Both in person, and around the world." Melissa McCarthy was in the audience herself, and appeared quizzical at the surprise guest. Host Stephen Colbert followed up by referring to Spicer as McCarthy in jest.
  • Congresswoman and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: In a high school video that was unearthed, she reenacted the dancing scene from The Breakfast Club. She quoted Watchmen against an anti-Latina tweet ("I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me.") while also namedropping Alan Moore. Then she dropped by Hbomberguy's trans-rights charity Twitch stream simply because he half-jokingly tweeted at her to stop by, which in turn led to her reminiscing about childhood memories playing the Nintendo 64 in-between serious discussions about human rights. She's now streaming Among Us on Twitch, as part of a get out the vote effort, as well.
  • Former Texas congressman and 2020 presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke was a member of Cult of the Dead Cow, the oldest hacking group in American history. He went by the handle "Psychedelic Warrior."
  • When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby first created and produced Captain America comics during World War 2, Nazi sympathizers in New York City actively picketed and threatened the two for daring to create stories based around a guy dressed in the American flag punching Hitler in the face. Luckily, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia was a huge fan of the good Captain and personally declared to Simon and Kirby that "the City of New York will see that no harm comes to you."
  • Eliezer "Modi" Zandberg, former member of the Israeli parliament, is a huge fan of The Beatles, and most definitely not a casual one. From 1996 to 2017 (for the first ten years of which he was in active public office, both as MP and later on as secretary of science and technology) he wrote, edited and presented - for no pay - a weekly, hour-long show on public radio, devoted entirely to the Beatles, during which he would play from his enormous personal collection of deep-cut album tracks, B-sides, bootlegs, live recordings, rehearsal recordings, solo material, collaborations and other rarities, peppered with various trivia and details about the history of the band and its members.
  • Lai Pin-yu surely used her talent as an Asuka and Sailor Mars cosplayer to win a seat in the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan.
  • Vice President Kamala Harris admitted during an interview that she was a huge Star Wars fan and was starstruck meeting Mark Hamill.
  • Congressman Josh Harder of California is a fan of Star Wars, sci-fi novels and was the President of his high school chess club. He's also ranked platinum in League of Legends.
  • US politician Misty Snow, and one of the first two transgender candidates for Democratic nominee, is a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. She is familiar with the drama involving Ken Penders and the characters he took with a lawsuit towards Archie Comics.
  • Upon becoming member-elect for California's 42nd District, Long Beach mayor Robert Garcia's reaction was to geek out at the prospect of having unfettered access to the Library of Congress' collection of comic books.

    Prime Ministers 

    Presidents 
  • Charles de Gaulle:
    • My only international rival is Tintin.
    • Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny of Asterix once heard that De Gaulle had named all the members of his cabinet after Asterix characters during a meeting. They had heard this first hand from one of the politicians. Later however the minister in question denied the story in the strongest possible terms.
  • Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek became a Tintin fan after he read The Blue Lotus and was inspired by Hergé's stance against the Japanese occupation of China in the 1930s in this story. He invited Hergé to visit China, but the artist only managed to get there after Chiang Kai Shek had already passed away.
  • Adolf Hitler was obsessed with the music of Richard Wagner. He watched all his operas and enjoyed the German folkloric themes in the stories. That Wagner himself was an antisemite might have also contributed to this fandom. Tragically, playing Wagner now has unfortunate implications, owing to Hitler's love for his work.
    • Hitler also enjoyed watching movies. His favourite films were King Kong (1933) and Lives Of A Bengal Lancer, which involves a handful of white people defeating hordes of Bengalis and upholding imperial rule. Apparently he liked it for the soundtrack...
    • Hitler also read voraciously, both for his love of classical literature and to compensate for his lack of schooling, acquiring a personal library of about 16000 volumes. Quite funnily, knowing his racism, one of the novels he rated among the world's greatest was Uncle Tom's Cabin.
    • As most Germans of his age he was also a huge fan of Karl May. He enjoyed his Cowboys and Indians stories and read them whenever he felt despair. He even recommended the books to his military staff and praised May's "tactical finesse and circumspection". Ironically enough, most of May's stories feature pacifist messages and preach racial tolerance, something that Hitler obviously ignored in his policies.
    • Hitler was a huge fan of Walt Disney and was said to have viewed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs multiple times. He even doodled a few of the characters (in full color too) during particularly boring war meetings. He was especially fond of drawling the Dwarves and Dopey in particular.
  • Kim Jong Il, dictator of North Korea, was a huge film fan and had a collection of thousands and thousands of movies. He loved films starring Elizabeth Taylor and enjoyed the James Bond and Daffy Duck franchise. The only Bond film he didn't like was (surprise, surprise) Die Another Day (where North Korean terrorists are the villains).
  • Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a huge fan of The Godfather. He enjoyed the message that "family comes before everything else." [3]
    • Uday and Qusay Hussein were apparently such huge Star Wars fans that they based some of the helmets on Imperial helmets.
    • Saddam and his sons were also reputedly fans of Scarface (1983), as evidenced by them naming their trust fund as "Montana Management".
  • Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito was a Laurel and Hardy fan and owned a 35mm copy of one of their films: "Busy Bodies".
  • Lee Teng-Hui, the first native Taiwanese to become president of said country and later its first democratically-elected leader, is quite the "Japanophile", along with many men and women of his generation, having graduated with honors from Kyoto University and volunteered for the Japanese Army in 1944. Geekier, he's a known otaku and after his retirement, cosplayed as the hawkish principal (with a similar military background to his own) from Sakigake!! Otokojuku to promote Japanese cinema and the show.
  • In a fan mail letter by Stan Laurel from August 1962 Laurel mentions that Tito, French president Vincent Auriol and Prince Harold of Denmark liked to watch Laurel & Hardy films, but expressed doubt if Hitler or Stalin ever saw them? (Note: Both Hitler and Stalin did and both were fans.)
  • Soviet leader Josef Stalin was a fan of James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, Tarzan movies and Laurel and Hardy. Despite seeing westerns as American propaganda he also enjoyed watching them. Yet, when he heard John Wayne was a staunch anti-communist he planned to have him murdered. Nikita Khrushchev personally made sure that Stalin's daft order wasn't carried out. Khrushchev also told John Wayne this when the politician visited the U.S.A. in 1959. Stalin's favorite movie of all time was the 1938 comedy "Volga-Volga". Khrushchev wrote in his memories that Stalin mockingly compared him to one of the characters in this picture.
  • During his 1959 US visit Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wanted to visit Disneyland, but his request was refused because US security advisors could not guarantee his safety. This made him so angry that it almost caused a diplomatic crisis!
  • Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was a huge fan of American Westerns. In particular, he loved The Rifleman and met its star Chuck Connors on several occasions. During Brezhnev's 1973 visit to the US, Connors even presented the Premier with two Colt .45s he'd used on his show Branded (1965). There are a few surviving photos of Brezhnev hunting with said Colts in a quasi-cowboy attire. He also loved Dirty Harry, repeatedly screening the movie for the Politburo and KGB leaders.
  • Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev named his policy of letting Eastern European countries decide for themselves whether they wanted communism or democracy the "Sinatra Doctrine," after Sinatra's song "My Way". He also tried to get George H. W. Bush to reveal who killed Laura Palmer. When Reagan and Gorbachev first met in Reykyavik in 1987 they apparently took the time to talk about Reagan's past in Hollywood and movies in general, besides political issues alone.
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin is a The Beatles fan. This has given Paul McCartney the advantage to put pressure on Putin by writing him a personal letter in 2013 for the release of 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance journalists to be released from prison. This are Macca's actual lines: “Forty-five years ago I wrote a song about Russia for The White Album, back when it wasn’t fashionable for English people to say nice things about your country. That song had one of my favourite Beatles lines in it: “Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it’s good to be back home.” Could you make that come true for the Greenpeace prisoners?” Since June 2014 the prisoners have been released, though it's not clear whether this was the result of Paul's letter sent in November 2013.
  • The former President and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitri Medvedev is a fan of classical Hard Rock (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin, among others), which is geeky nowadays... especially in Mother Russia, where even geeks are badass.
  • Czech President Václav Havel was a huge Frank Zappa and Velvet Underground fan. During the Cold War, when Havel was still a poet and playwright, all subversive music was banned, which may also explain his admiration for their music. After Havel's inauguration he made Zappa his Cultural Ambassador of Czechoslovakia and invited him to visit his country! He also said that Bongo Fury was his favorite Zappa album.
  • Hungarian President Árpád Göncz translated The Lord of the Rings and Farmer Giles of Ham into Hungarian. He also submitted a statement of appreciation of Tolkien to The Centenary Conference 1992 and said "Lord of the Rings" "serves as a positive role model in our dehumanized world as well as an exciting lecture […] it helped transform our world into one smiling global village”.
  • John Adams was a huge bibliophile. He owned over 3.5000 volumes of books, full with scribbling thoughts, reactions and counter-arguments to lines he read.
  • Thomas Jefferson owned so much books that his personal library was the largest personal collection in the country at the time! He even sold it to the US government to help replace the Library of Congress when the British burned Washington down during the War of 1812. Jefferson’s constant purchasing of books also seems to have been a detriment to his finances and probably played some part in his bankruptcy at the time of his death.
  • Abraham Lincoln was such a fan of William Shakespeare that he carried copies of his collected works around. He once stated during a White House dinner: “Some of Shakespeare’s plays I have never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard the Third, Henry the Eighth, Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth.”
  • James Garfield adored Robinson Crusoe and reread it countless times, even comparing all other novels he read to it.
  • Chester A. Arthur enjoyed Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.
  • Benjamin Harrison loved the works of Walter Scott.
  • William McKinley brought a book with poems by Lord Byron with him on his way to fight in the war.
  • Calvin Coolidge was hugely influenced by Cicero and read his classic works so often that he became fluent in Latin.
  • Herbert Hoover identified with David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, because he himself was an orphan who went through a troubled childhood.
  • US President Franklin D. Roosevelt loved Laurel and Hardy and his favorite movie was "I'm No Angel" with Mae West. Roosevelt was also known to enjoy Mickey Mouse cartoons and once praised Shirley Temple keeping America's spirits high during the Great Depression with the following words: "As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right". He also loved Rudyard Kipling, especially the poem "If..."
  • Harry S. Truman named ''My Darling Clementine" his favorite movie. He was also a big fan of classical music, Broadway musicals, and Gilbert and Sullivan. He had an extensive record collection, and was a pretty good pianist.
  • US President John F. Kennedy was a huge fan of the James Bond books. From Russia with Love was selected as the second Bond film because Kennedy listed it in his top 10 favorite books. It was the last film he'd ever see. In a similar vein, Kennedy enjoyed John Buchan's spy novels The Thirty-Nine Steps and Greenmantle, and once cited T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom as his favorite nonfiction work. Surprisingly enough, his favorite movie was reportedly Roman Holiday.
  • US President Lyndon Johnson listened a lot to Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water during the final post-presidential years of his life. It cheered him up whenever he felt down. Johnson's favorite film was The Searchers. In the wake of Kennedy's murder, LBJ, in an effort to introduce himself to the American people, commissioned the U.S. Information Agency to produce a movie about himself. The ten-minute short, narrated by Gregory Peck, was a yawner — except in the White House theater, where Johnson was known to watch it over and over.
  • US President Richard Nixon repeatedly watched Patton and urged his staff and associates to do so. It's reported that watching the film steeled his resolve to invade Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and that Zhou Enlai screened the movie for his staff before Nixon's visit to China. His favorite movie, however, was Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which he watched repeatedly, much to his family's consternation. He also owned a copy of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant. Nixon was such an avid moviegoer that a whole book's been written analyzing his taste in films. He also appeared in a few episodes of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In delivering the memorable line "Sock it to me?" Nixon also enjoyed playing piano (in his youth, he even composed a few songs himself) and read anything by Leo Tolstoy.
  • Gerald Ford took delight in reading Horatio Alger novels. He hosted a White House screening of The Wind and the Lion, and regaled director John Milius with stories of his time working in Yellowstone National Park. Milius didn't have the heart to tell Ford that the movie's Yellowstone scenes were actually filmed in Spain.
  • US President Jimmy Carter is such a fan of poet Dylan Thomas that he even recorded a special audio message for tourists who visit the poet's birthplace. Carter also holds the record of having watched more movies during his term than any other US President: 480 (!) His favorite book was "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans, a document of the plight of sharecroppers in the South during the Dust Bowl.
  • US President Ronald Reagan was a huge movie fan, which shouldn't surprise anyone, given the fact that he was a former Hollywood actor. He frequently referenced movies in his speeches (Dirty Harry, Back to the Future, Rambo,...) and even based his Star Wars defense program on the movie series Star Wars. One morning, at an economic summit in Williamsburg, Va., White House Chief of Staff James Baker learned that Reagan hadn't studied his briefing books the night before. He asked the president why. "Well, Jim, The Sound of Music was on TV," Reagan replied. Reagan also loved Tom Clancy and mentioned the book The Hunt for Red October in one of his speeches. Reagan also enjoyed Family Ties so much that he volunteered to have a cameo on the show, but the producers ignored this plea.
  • US President George H. W. Bush is a huge fan of Fawlty Towers. During the Gulf War (1991) he used to watch episodes to relax from ongoing stress. Bush's two favorite films were Viva Zapata! and The Longest Day.
  • US president Bill Clinton loved High Noon. He screened it a record 17 times in the White House. Interestingly enough, other US Presidents like Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan were also big fans.
    • Clinton is an avid reader, as according to friends and family, he is working on at least two books at one time. He named One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez his favorite novel of all time. During his presidency he made sure that Marquez, who was denied a visa to the USA for more than 30 years, was allowed to be a guest in the country again.
    • Reportedly, after watching Air Force One, Clinton wanted an escape pod like the one seemingly used in the film for the actual Air Force One.
  • According to Karl Rove, George W. Bush grew fond of Babylon 5, as well as A&E's "Biography" series and watching baseball games on TV. W's favorite movie is Field of Dreams.
  • Barack Obama:
    • Obama has demonstrated a deep familiarity with Star Trek, joked at the Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner about being sent by his father Jor-El to save the planet Earth, apparently dressed as a wizard to take his daughters to a midnight release of a Harry Potter book, and according to a possibly apocryphal report on tor.com is familiar enough with Internet memes to make Zero Wing jokes. You just know if he ever gets in a war, something will be called "Operation All Your Base Are Belong To US." He also collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics; in fact, he is reputedly a collector of the mylar-bag-and-backboard, never read'em stripe. This has been escalated and expanded on here. He even wrote a personal note to Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi, to let the writer know how much he and his daughter enjoyed reading the novel. Whenever President Obama is asked about his all-time favorite books, he often lists quite a few titles and usually a different group of titles each time, but two books that have consistently been listed by the president are Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Obama also loves M*A*S*H and The Wire.
    • Wired has several more examples.
    • During Obama's visit to Poland at the end of May 2011, Prime Minister Donald Tusk gave him the collector's edition of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings as a gift.
    • When he met Leonard Nimoy, he greeted him with the Vulcan hand salute.
    • He seems to also be a fan of Star Wars, given his statement of intent to watch The Force Awakens after a speech given in 2015.
    • In a National News Conference about Health Care, Obama argued one of his points by talking about comparing costs for "A red pill and a blue pill."
    • John Hodgman had a whole speech on this.
    • There's also that Newsweek behind-the-scenes special (misquoted at the bottom of the first paragraph) where he was observed by one of their reporters making his wife roll her eyes at a joke about her belt having dilithium crystals on it.
    • And then there's him wielding a frigging LIGHTSABER◊ on the White House lawn in a photo-op for the Olympics.
    • And he appeared in a MythBusters episode where they try to make the solar powered death ray work for the third time. The stated goal of the appearance is to encourage science and technology education.
    • Obama's favorite films are The Godfather I and II: "Three not that much. That saga — I love that movie. ...I think my favorite has to be, the opening scene of the first Godfather... It sets the tone for the whole movie."
    • Michelle herself; she was the salutatorian of her high school. Although she pales in comparison to Barack's nerdiness, that's still pretty nerdy.
    • He's also familiar with the Vlogbrothers and Nerdfighteria.
    • During a press conference on military technology he jokingly admitted they were building Iron Man
    • And Obama is a fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit too since he was 10 years old.
    • He's a big fan of The Three Body Problem Trilogy:
      Barack Obama: The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!
    • He also follows Aperture Science on Twitter.
  • Donald Trump is (somewhat ironically) a big fan of musical theater and his favorite musical is Evita, which has supposedly seen 6 times.
  • Joe Biden has a tendency to quote Irish poetry in his speeches, and sometimes entirely off the cuff.
  • Chinese President Xi Jinping revealed he's fan of House of Cards (US) and Sleepless in Seattle during a Sept. 2015 state visit to the United States.
  • Dictator Idi Amin of Uganda was fond of Walt Disney cartoons, though he liked other animation just as much. After he was driven out of his country in 1979 several reels of Tom and Jerry cartoons were found in his palace.
  • PLO leader Yasser Arafat also enjoyed watching Tom and Jerry because he felt sympathy towards the mouse defeating an aggressor ten times his size.
  • Spanish dictator Francisco Franco's favorite movie was "Nobleza Baturra", a 1935 Spanish musical drama film noted for its folkloric setting and rural atmosphere.
  • Irish President Mary Robinson was once a guest on Desert Island Discs where she choose music by Giacomo Puccini, Joseph Haydn, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Édith Piaf and Luke Kelly as her favorite musical artists.
  • Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov is a huge wrestling and boxing fan, collects sports cars and owns several racehorses. He's also a really avid user of social media, most notably Instagram (until his account was banned for personal sanctions.)
  • French president Emmanuel Macron is a huge fan of One Piece. He was delighted after being gifted an illustration by One Piece Eiichiro Oda himself.
  • Chilean President Gabriel Boric is a Magic: The Gathering fan, and knows quite a bit about the game and its lore, although he is not currently an active player. Amusingly, when he was active, he usually played Rakdos decks...

    Royals 
  • Julius Caesar wrote fan fiction about Hercules (the Superman of his day) in his youth.
  • English medieval king Alfred the Great was a prince from a semi-civilized country where almost every noble was a Jerk Jock by inclination. He studied classical literature, wrote about theology, and sent many a savage plundering Northman to his doom. He was a nerd with a sword.
  • Philippe II of Spain collected paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and even had one near his bedside.
  • Isabella II of Spain was so fond of Luis de Eguílaz's serialized novels such as The Sword of Saint Ferdinand that after reading one chapter published in the La Correspondencia de España newspaper, she often pulled strings to get a printed copy of the next one.
  • Former King Juan Carlos of Spain is a radio amateur and motorcyclist.
  • King Abdullah II of Jordan is an acknowledged fan of Star Trek, and guest-starred on Star Trek: Voyager when he was still a prince.note  Later, when Michael Bay was going to film Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen in Jordan, he ordered 38 military helicopters to transport the equipment to Petra, allowing the film crew those overhead shots of the same ruins that appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Turns out His Majesty is a big fan of Transformers and loves the franchise.
    • King Abdullah announced the creation of a Star Trek theme park to be built in his country under licence from CBS, which he funded. The $1.5 billion project was planned to open in 2014, however, construction stopped in early 2015, and the park was never completed or opened.
    • Abdullah follows his father Hussein in this regard. Hussein heavily encouraged Hollywood films to shoot in Jordan, including Lawrence of Arabia and Mohammad, Messenger of God, providing considerable logistical support and military extras. He actually met his second wife (Abdullah's mother) while she worked on the Lawrence film crew.
    • The late King Hussein was also an enthusiastic aviator, and personally had a hand in the founding of the nation's first aerobatic display team.
    • King Hussein was also an avid ham radio operator, callsign JY 1.
  • Queen Elizabeth II was reportedly a big fan of Doctor Who. She was also a Wrench Wench (at least during World War II).
    • Michael Grade was the only BBC controller to have never been knighted. Grade is also the man most people consider to be responsible of the cancellation of the classic series. Take from that what you will.
    • She was also a techie; at an age (born in 1926) where many people have long since stopped keeping pace with new technology, she was an avid BlackBerry user. It was her idea to televise her coronation (television then having only one channel that went off the air by the evening and still not as popular as radio), which gained popularity by the coronation. In the 1970s she sent the first email in the UK. She also enjoyed playing ''Wii Bowling''. When Obama first met with her, he considered an iPod to be an appropriate gift for her — and she already had one. It's not just that: the iPod was her idea, as she had mentioned that hers was a generation or two out of date. Let the speculation as to whether she and Obama exchanged private numbers begin!
    • She also owned an iPad since 2011.
    • She was also a The Beatles fan from the first hour. In 1965 the band were also the first music artists to receive a MBE medal.
    • She was also into helicopters as well: a video preceding her arrival in the Olympic Stadium in the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games featured a helicopter flying through Tower Bridge. She discovered the helicopter they planned to use would be incapable of doing the stunt and personally recommended the one they did use.
    • Reportedly, on one occasion a special gig by Paul McCartney was arranged for her birthday, only for the Queen to explain that she couldn't stay for it, as it was time for Twin Peaks.
  • Her son King Charles III is, if anything, an even bigger nerd than his mother. Since his youth he has been a major fan of The Goon Show to the point of making fan film (and doing a very creditable Bluebottle impersonation). Apart from that he is also the highest ranking noble Monty Python fan. He also went to visit Peter Jackson in New Zealand and got to see the first The Hobbit movie before the rest of the world did. He's also a known Rail Enthusiast, and has spent time on the footplate of various steam locomotives, as well as the Royal Train, driving his mum.
  • According to Stephen Fry's 2014 memoires Princess Diana was a huge fan of Spitting Image. When Prince Charles and Princess Diana were leaving Fry's house after tea one day, the Princess stayed behind for a second and whispered in Fry's ear: "Sorry to leave early, but secretly I'm quite glad. "Spitting Image" is on tonight – I want to watch it in my room. They hate it of course, but I absolutely love it." note 
  • Prince William is also a fan of The Hobbit. According to Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins in the film adaptation), who met the prince, his knowledge about the novel is amazing.
  • Elisabeth Bowes-Lyon, aka The Queen Mum, watched Dallas a lot. During the Who shot J.R.? mystery she even met actor Larry Hagman (J.R.) and told him: 'I am not going to ask you who shot you'. Hagman replied: 'I wouldn't say, not even to you, your majesty'." In 2011 her record collection was made public. Among the music she listened to were Montana Slim, Ska, Noël Coward, the soundtracks of Oklahoma! and The King and I and comedy records by Tony Hancock and The Goon Show. [5]
  • Queen Margaretha II of Denmark is a major The Lord of the Rings fan, and has illustrated several editions of the Danish translation. She also studied archaeology when she went to uni, and remains an avid amateur archaeologist.
  • King Baudouin and his brother, the later king Albert II of Belgium, learned Dutch by reading Nero. Interestingly enough the comic strip's creator Marc Sleen is one of the few Belgian comic strip artists to ever have been knighted.
  • Belgian queen Fabiola was a huge fan of Abba. Which would make her, if the old woman actually danced to their music, a literal "Dancing Queen"! According to count Paul Buysse, who knew her personally, she once seriously wanted to see the band live in London, but palace protocol prevented this.
  • The Japanese Emperor Hirohito loved Disney cartoons. He visited Disneyland during his official visit to the United States and received a copy of his personal favorite Disney cartoon Lambert the Sheepish Lion as a gift. After his death Hirohito was buried wearing a Mickey Mouse watch.
    • Hirohito's grandson, Naruhito (the emperor of Japan in Reiwa Era), is a fan of Ultraseven, having grew up watching the show itself. Back in September 2008, he was seen taking photos with the titular hero himself.
  • Emperor Wilhelm II of Imperial Germany had a penchant for war games and dashing uniforms, essentially being both a tabletop nerd and cosplayer before both subcultures even existed. He was also a bit of a tech geek: Wilhelm liked drawing conceptual sketches of warships and buildings and was particularly enthusiastic about the latest technology of the day, such as airshipsnote 
  • Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad in Salman al-Saud said in an interview that he loves playing Franchise/Call of Duty games to take a break on reality.

    Religious leaders 
  • A copy of Tintin in Tibet was once given to the Dalai Lama. He was also photographed reading it. He in return awarded Tintin with the Truth of Light Award, for making a significant contribution to the public's understanding of Tibet.
  • Pope John Paul II was a soccer player during his youth. His enthusiasm for the sport never waned. In 2004 he met members of the Polish National Football Team and told goal keeper Jerzy Dudek that he was fan of them. He is also the only Pope to ever been made a Honorary Harlem Globetrotter, which happened when the sports team visited the Vatican in 2000. John Paul II is also the first pope to officially release a music album. In 1999 a CD was made, Abbà Pater (1999), which samples quotes from his speeches over liturgic music. The man was also a huge fan of the German TV detective series Derrick and is said to have greatly enjoyed The Blues Brothers.
  • Pope Benedict XVI is a known classical music fan, with his favourite composer being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The irony is not lost with Pope Benedict's affinity for Mozart considering the latter's membership into the Freemasonry, however.note  Pope Benedict himself is also an accomplished pianist, having recorded an album of contemporary classical music in which he sings and recites prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
  • Pope Francis is a huge fan of J. R. R. Tolkien (himself a devout Catholic). He has even used The Lord of the Rings in his theology writings. Pope Francis is also a HUGE soccer fan, and his favorite Argentinian team is San Lorenzo de Almagro — they attributed their 2014 win in the Copa Libertadores to him, and later met up with them in the Vatican itself. In 2015 he also became the first Pope to release a Progressive Rock album, called Wake Up! It's actually an album made by rock artist Tony Pagliuca which combines audio clips from speeches by Francisus with Gregorian chants and pop rock, but the record was officially approved by the Vatican.
    • He's also hinted at being a fan of the video game Undertale. In 2016, a copy of the game was given to him as a gift by Catholic gaming YouTuber MatPat, though as to whether he actually played the game is rather questionable to say the least, and the copy of Undertale was more of a symbolic gesture of goodwill than anything. Nevertheless, in early 2022, he actually used music from the game in a presentation.
    • He's also a big fan of Elvis Presley.
  • Radicial Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, best known for being a pain in the ass to the US in Iraq, received the derisive nickname "Mullah Atari" in seminary because he was gaming when he should have been studying.
  • Reverend and Afro-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.. was a fan of Star Trek, and even convinced Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols not to quit the show., since she was cast in a role that had her as an equal among her crew in a job that wasn't a stereotype.
  • Northern Irish reverend and activist Ian Paisley was guest in a 1988 episode of Desert Island Discs where most of the music he choose was religious choir music, except for a rendition of "Danny Boy" by Robert White and "Bound for Texas Land" by the Killycoogan Accordion Band.

    Other 
  • The American military regularly makes Star Wars allusions. There are projects codenamed "X-wing" and "Death Star." Many soldiers are Fandalorians, to the point of units getting tattoos that say "vode an".
    • Common in many western militaries. During the late 80s-early 90s, the one show guaranteed to fill a television lounge on a Canadian base? The newest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • The state legislature of Oregon once rick-rolled their state.
  • Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was an amateur mechanic during his teenage years, dismantled and repaired motorcycles and even built a (hardly) flyable glider. He hoped to become an engineer when he grew up.
  • Field Marshal Erich von Manstein was a passionate chess player (quite appropriate for a strategist) and this was his favorite way to relax between battles on the front line.
  • During her 2012 appearance on Desert Island Discs Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi choose music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Pachelbel, Antonín Dvořák, The Beatles, John Lennon, Bilat Pyan Than, Mya Gyi and Tom Jones as her favorites to take with her to a deserted island.
  • Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke - Chief of Staff of the British Empire in World War II - was a renowned ornithologist who even became president of the Zoological Society of London in his post-war years.
  • U.S. conservative pundit Glenn Beck has preserved many TV & movie props at his Mercury Studios facility in Las Colinas, Texas (Mercury Studios was once known as The Studios at Las Colinas, and was home to everything from RoboCop to Walker, Texas Ranger to Barney & Friends).
  • Tipper Gore is a huge fan of rock and pop music (ironic, given that she and the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) were accused of music censorship for advocating for the placement of Content Warnings on the covers of albums featuring profane language). She played drums in an all-female band called the Wildcats in high school, and has been a guest performer with The Dead, Willie Nelson and Herbie Hancock.
  • Education advocate and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai enjoyed the first episode of Ms. Marvel (2022) enough to send a handwritten letter to Disney+ praising the show, especially in its portrayal of a Pakistani Muslim heroine whose life reflects that heritage.

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