I found this years ago on reddit and saved it. So now I’m posting it here.
Barack Obama became President of the United States because People Magazine thought actor Garret Wang was attractive.
Here’s how it went down:
At the end of Voyager series 3, the writers wanted to introduce a new character, but because the budget only allowed for a certain number of main actors, they had to let one of them go. Originally this was going to be Harry Kim, played by Garrett Wang, who had been very vocal in his hate for the show. (This is why there’s a weird cliffhanger with him about to die that gets almost immediately overturned in series 4).
People Magazine then ran a list of the Hottest 50 Men which included Wang. Seeing he was popular, they decided to get rid of the character Kes, played by Jennifer Lien, whose character they thought they’d messed up a bit and run out of ideas.
Since Kes leaving left them with only two major female characters, they decided to make their new character female as well, leading to them making Seven of Nine, played by Jeri Ryan.
For filming, she had to move to California, which put strain on her already damaged relationship with Jack Ryan and led to their divorce. In 2004, the messy details of their divorce came out, forcing Jack Ryan to stand down from running for the position of Senator of Illinois, allowing a relatively new Barack Obama to win. Four years later, Obama became President of the US.
