User:Paine Ellsworth/United Kingdom prime minister mistaken for actress

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Notability

United Kingdom prime minister, Theresa May, has been mistaken for an English glamour model and actress. Teresa Betteridge, who is also known by her stage name Teresa May. The actress was mistaken for the prime minister in 2000, many times since, and again in 2017 by Donald Trump because of the difference in spelling of their names. The actress/model can be heard in a brief audio recording made in February 2000 with the prime minister, who was then shadow education secretary.

While it has been suggested that the television appearance and discussion between the then shadow education secretary and the soft-porn actress was instrumental in bolstering both Theresa May's political career and her Conservative party's public image, the mixup has received much media attention over the years culminating in the 2016 coverage of the prime minister's bid for that position and in 2017 when newly installed U.S. president, Donald Trump, left out the "h" in the prime minister's name three times in official documents. The actress has received an upsurge in her followers on Twitter due to the mixup, and the prime minister has received mail from fans of the actress.

Television appearance
One of Theresa May's press officers, Peter Craske, is credited with first fueling this situation, which began several years before she had become prime minister and while she was serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment. She and the actress appeared together in 2000 on the Good Morning Television program. She received mail that was meant for Teresa May. Author Theresa June wrote:

"The letters were from fans of the popular pornographic star Teresa May [...] [who had] earlier played a nightclub hostess in a programme called Lady Lust for the [Granada television channel Men and Motors] [...] Then Craske came up with a [...] plan, one which would both raise May's profile and win her brownie points by helping the party: he would give the story of "the other Teresa May" to [...] the [Daily Telegraph's] Peterborough column [...] The story took off [...]"

The two women had sat together on the daytime television sofa, "chatting politely about current events. Both were attractive and articulate; they were less than a decade apart in age. But there the similarity ended. One was an adult film star and topless model who had starred in more than 60 pornographic movies. The other was the Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Strangers until that week, all that had brought them together that morning was the coincidence of their names."

After their friendly discussion for the television cameras ended, the two women had enjoyed their conversation so much that they continued talking over coffee in a nearby cafe.

Campaign for prime minister
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Trump's typo
In 2017, newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump's staff made spelling errors three times that once again brought this situation into the limelight:

"BUNGLING White House chiefs misspelled Theresa May three times – mistakenly naming her after a porn star who starred in the video for The Prodigy’s Smack My B**** Up. Official documents handed to the media ahead of her meeting with Donald Trump showed the "h" had been missed from "Theresa" three times."

In the first document appeared, "In the afternoon, the president will partake in a bilateral meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister, Teresa May." It then continued, "The president participates in a working luncheon with Teresa May, Prime Minister of United Kingdom." Danny Collins of The Sun reported: "The filthy faux pas will likely come as a surprise to vicar’s daughter May ahead of her crunch chat with new White House don Trump this afternoon. The error was repeated in a later guidance note from the Office of the Vice President before finally being corrected."

The U.S. president and his administration are "boobs" and "bunglers" according to a daily newspaper with over 1.6 million readers (late 2016) in the United Kingdom and Ireland. No expression of regret from the White House has been forthcoming.