Roommate Recalled

He would walk into the room and everyone would kind of go: “Ugh, Spicer.”

Awl pal Dave Bry was Sean Spicer’s freshman year roommate at Connecticut College (he wrote about it for The Guardian last year). In a recent interview with his alma mater’s newspaper, he goes a little more in depth about coffee mugs filled with dip spit, and the sailing club—sorry, the sailing team.

TCV: And so would you say he was well-known on campus? Well-liked?

DB: Um, no. Not well-liked. Not like hated. How can I describe Sean Spicer? Because he was kind of an interesting guy. He was very into, like, always having a sense of humor, and funny, and laughing and chatty. And that was something that was, you know, kind of pleasant about him. But he wasn’t so good at it. And he wasn’t very popular, I would say — he was like, he would walk into the room and everyone would kind of go: “Ugh, Spicer.” But he was aware of that, and so then would like, play with it, so he’d be like: “Hey, come on guys! It’s just me! Come on, let’s have a beer; we love each other! Yeah, come on — oh, I know you don’t like me, but that’s just because you don’t know me!” He’d put his arm around you, and kind of be like, “come on!” you know? And so it was this very interesting combination of characteristics, where you could tell he really wanted to be liked; he tried a little too hard. He brought — you know, we had this thing freshman year during orientation where you were supposed to bring one item that describes yourself, you know, that if you would bring to put in a museum about yourself it would let them know about yourself, and I remember he brought his fake I.D. And he said, “Yeah, this is my fake I.D., and it says a lot about me because I really like to drink beer.”

You can read the whole thing, and/or listen to the full audio of the interview, here.

Vintage Spice: Dave Bry Tells the Voice about Life with the White House Press Secretary