Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust (18 page)

“I looked through all of the group shots we had, from 1985 to 1989. She’s not in any of them. I know she looked different; her hair was darker. But Michaele is five foot ten inches tall! You can’t change that! She’d stand out.” Lamb concedes, however, that group photos of the squads were often taken when not all the members were present. Further, Lamb said, she had combed through all the available membership rosters and found no trace of anyone named Holt. Lamb was careful to point out that their record keeping was not complete and that fact left open the possibility that Michaele had been a Redskins cheerleader.

Throughout my research for this book, this was the one topic I came back to over and over again. Such a simple question—why wasn’t there a definitive answer? After obtaining some internal documents which listed the entire membership of the Alumni Club and their contact information, I set about to cull all those who had been active in and around the 87-88 season. I sent out more than three dozen e-mails which read in part:

I notice that you were involved with the Redskins cheerleaders at a time when Michaele Salahi—known as Missy Holt back then—says she was also with the organization.

My question is simple: do you remember her? I’ve attached a picture of what she looked like back in
1987 - 88 and as you can see it was quite different than the pictures we see of her today, dressed in her red sari and with long platinum blonde hair going to the White House.

Also - she is 5 foot 10 inches tall. I would think a young woman of that height would stand out on a cheerleading squad.

Can you help me please? Again, your name and identity need never be revealed.

Of the dozen or so Redskin Cheerleader Alumni Club members who responded, not one remembered a Michaele or Missy Holt.

During interviews in the Salahis’ Virginia home, and in repeated telephone interviews that followed, I directly asked Michaele to come clean about her background with the Redskins organization. Here is the story she told me and the one she sticks to, today:

Michaele maintains that she went through the rigorous training and practice to become a Redskins cheerleader in early 1987. As part of her “duties” as a cheerleader, she made public appearances at a new Georgetown area nightspot called Champions. She said proof of that could be found in a
Washingtonian Magazine
article written about the club and its owner, Michael O’Harro. She said she could be seen in the accompanying photo spread identified as being a Redskins Cheerleader. After cheering on the field during “only one or two games” in the 1987-88 season, Michaele said she was forced to drop out of the unpaid cheerleading position to get a job that paid. “I was out of high school for a while, and even though I did still live at home, I had to start earning my own money,” she told me.

Michaele promised several times that she would go back to their padlocked apartment at Oasis Vineyards and search through boxes until she found photographs of herself in the official Redskins cheerleader uniform. Rosemary Holt backed up her daughter’s story telling me she too would look for those old photographs and she added, “I helped her buy her first black boots after she got picked to be a Redskins cheerleader. Missy was in between paychecks, I remember, and those boots were expensive!” As I heard these two stories, I noted that while her mother said she was ‘in between paychecks,” Michaele had said she needed to get a paying job.

The cheerleader’s Alumni Club puts out annual yearbooks and pictures of the photogenic Michaele abound. She points to her inclusion in the yearbooks as proof that she was an actual member of the cheerleading squad. “How could I be in the alumni group if I wasn’t ever a cheerleader?” she asks with a big smile.

However, it’s evident in those picture books that something doesn’t add up. The Alumni are grouped by decades and Michaele is listed as being from the cheering squads of the 90s era and not the 80s. She had an answer for that too. She told me after her brief stint with the Redskins, she was content to let it go. She didn’t want to be part of the Alumni Club because she would be giving away her age (a huge negative for a professional model, she told me) if she admitted she’d been with the 87-88 squad. According to Michaele, it was Terri Lamb who came to her in the early 2000s and said, “You’d be a great addition to the Alumni Club! Please, please, please—come and join us!” After she explained her “age-problem dilemma” to Lamb, Michaele said, the Alumni president came up with the bright idea to help her hide her age by simply lumping her in with the younger group of women from the 90s decade. That was the perfect solution, according to Michaele, so she then agreed to join the group.

My investigation on this topic turned up interesting and conflicting information. First, nowhere in the
Washingtonian Magazine
article about Champions entitled, “Whatever Happened to Singles Bars?” written by Rudy Maxa is Michaele seen or mentioned. Further, it was published in March of 1989, well after Michaele says she’d left the squad. I contacted Michael O’Harro who says he has absolutely no memory of her, even after having seen a photo of Michaele from that era.

Howard Holt Jr., Michaele’s oldest brother, a likeable man in his 50s who has the same tall and thin stature of his sister, said he remembered his sister taking him to Champions in the late 80s, before the family moved back to Pennsylvania, and that she had “some sort of job there, like a hostess or greeter.” He definitely does
not
recall Michaele ever being an NFL cheerleader. He lived and worked in Florida for a while but said, “I’ve always been close to my sister. I would have known if she was a Redskins cheerleader. She wasn’t and she needs to come clean about that.”

Dick Garrison was the cheerleader’s head choreographer during the time Michaele says she was on the squad. I spoke to him at his retirement home in Florida and he was firm in his recollections. He said he didn’t remember a Michaele or Missy, never had a cheerleader that was five foot ten inches tall and never had a squad member leave after cheering at only one or two games. Garrison concluded by saying, “She can’t prove she was there. I can’t prove she wasn’t.”

Terri Lamb helped answer many of the outstanding questions I had about Michaele’s story. How could she have appeared in so many of the Alumni Club yearbooks without having been an actual member of the squad? Lamb says she was chosen to be part of the Alumni group because her husband was co-owner of a suite at the stadium. “They were up looking at the suite one day and one of our guys walked by and talked to them. Michaele told him she had been a former cheerleader; Tareq told him it was in the 80s.” Lamb was informed of this exchange and was given Michaele’s phone number to contact to see if she wanted to join the Alumni Club.

“We took her for her word that she’d been a cheerleader,” Lamb told me, “Who would lie to the Redskins organization about that?”

When Terri reached Michaele on the telephone, “She said to me, ‘I’m a model. I can’t let people know I was cheering in the 80s. They’d be able to figure out how old I am and that’s not good in my business.’” Lamb said that
together
they came up with the idea of listing Michaele with the 90s squad to help her continue to fudge her age. Lamb refutes the idea that she alone came up with the ploy.

Lamb also revealed that as the media questions persisted, she spoke again to Michaele and asked, absent an actual photograph of herself, could she describe her uniform? “Every cheerleader can remember what her uniform looked like. I have all the uniforms here going back to 1962. I figured if she could describe hers that would be some proof.” But, Lamb said Michaele’s feeble description of a “two piece uniform, white, with some fringe …” didn’t even vaguely match the real deal. And those black boots Rosemary Holt remembers buying for her daughter? Lamb said the Redskinettes never wore black boots—ever. “I have been informed that the girls did not have to purchase their own boots back in ‘86, ‘87, or ‘88. The boots were paid for by a sponsor and given to each girl once they made the squad.”

After much investigation and many interviews with the principals I have to conclude that Michaele Holt Salahi made up the story of having been a Redskins cheerleader—either to impress Tareq, or for some other reason—and once caught in the lie, she responded by confronting those who questioned her with more lies.

It raised the question—what else might she have been less than truthful about?

When I asked her about reports which sneeringly referred to her as “a so-called former model” she was able to produce a multitude of tear sheets of her modeling work. I also asked about a report ridiculing her for claiming she had been a Victoria Secret Lingerie model. To that Michaele firmly replied, “I never said any such thing. I dare someone to show me where I said that. It was made up by the media.”

I delved into other media reports suggesting she was a heavy drinker, anorexic or used drugs to stay so slim. She rolled her eyes and said, “It reminds me of a time when I met actress Teri Garr at a charity event for multiple sclerosis a few years ago. The disease had put her in a wheelchair and she pulled me over and said, ‘Look at you. You’re so lovely and so lucky to have your health!’ I wanted to tell her then and I want to tell all of these people now: I have multiple sclerosis. That’s the only thing wrong with me!”

Perhaps the biggest fallacy of all is that the Salahis are somehow getting rich off their participation in the Bravo TV
Real Housewives of D.C.
series or off the scandal that erupted since their evening at the White House. Nothing could be further from the truth. While all the other cast members of the television show seem to have thriving businesses and live in stylish homes, the Salahis are, at this writing, battling eviction from their home and struggling to make ends meet. The typical contract for a first year cast member on
Real Housewives of D.C
.
,
is a paltry twenty thousand dollars for the season, and that is widely believed to be what Michaele is earning although she would not confirm that amount. The Oasis Vineyards is in bankruptcy and is a tangled, weed choked plot of land with withering grape vines and outbuildings in dire need of repair. During research for this book, there were periods when their phones were cut off and cell phones were a luxury they couldn’t afford.

They continue to face a mound of outstanding debts, legal bills and old lawsuits, many stemming from the Salahis’ failure to pay the bills—goods and services tied to their business or to their polo events. Tareq has an excuse for every one—from, “they didn’t provide the level of service they said they would,” to, “My mom put Oasis into bankruptcy and all assets are frozen.” The bottom line is that Tareq’s business practices have left the couple vulnerable and uncertain as to whether they can ever financially recover.

The Media Gone Mad

The phone message might have been funny if it weren’t for the circumstances. The voice of an older man warbled to Michaele in the recorded phone message:

Mee-kell, my belle, won’t you come and beeeee on my shooooow….My Mee-kell. If this voice is familiar to you, it should be. It’s Larry King. I’m waiting desperately to hear from you. Come be on my show. We’ll fly you in an airplane! Not just any plane. A big plane with jets. I have a private jet with four engines that I’ll send for you. I don’t send it for just anybody. Say yes, Michaele, and I won’t sing anymore. Do it! Here’s my cell:
310—xxx—xxxx.