The “Shazam” star recalled hearing “some loud banging” that he thought sounded like gunshots before Secret Service agents arrived on the scene.

Zachary Levi describes White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting: ‘Everyone started to turn and drop’

The "Shazam" star recalled hearing "some loud banging" that he thought sounded like gunshots before Secret Service agents arrived on the scene.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

EW's editorial guidelines

April 27, 2026 10:28 a.m. ET

Zachary Levi; Donald Trump. Credit:

- Zachary Levi detailed the scene during the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday.

- The *Shazam* actor spoke with *USA Today* in the immediate aftermath of the incident, recalling "some loud banging" that he thought sounded like gunshots.

- An alleged shooter, Cole Allen, 31, was later taken into custody.

Zachary Levi is detailing the scene that unfolded during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting.

The *Shazam* actor, 45, spoke with *USA Today* in the immediate aftermath of the incident, which occurred at the Washington Hilton ballroom in Washington, D.C., on Saturday evening.

“We were sitting at the table and there was some loud banging that definitely caught my attention,” Levi told the outlet. “In the back of my head, I thought, jokingly thinking, ‘Oh, that kind of sounds like gunshots.’”

Zachary Levi in 2025.

The *Tangled* star cautioned in the moments after the shooting that it hadn’t been confirmed that the sounds he’d heard had been gunfire, noting that it could’ve been tables falling or things being dropped in the hallway. Regardless, the sound caught everyone’s attention.

“The next thing we saw, everybody started to turn and drop. There was commotion,” Levi said. “Everybody started to kind of hide under tables, and the Secret Service were pouring in and trying to get to anyone of import — anyone in the administration, any legislators, including the president — they were getting them all out of there as quickly as they could.”

'There will be some shots fired,' Karoline Leavitt joked before gunfire at Correspondents' Dinner

Cheryl Hines details escape after Trump White House Correspondents' Dinner gunfire

The situation then “seemed to calm down,” Levi recalled.

“Everyone started popping up from the tables. We didn’t know what was going on,” he continued. “And we’ve just recently been told that they are going to continue with the dinner with some updates soon.”

Levi expressed his concern over the decision to resume the dinner after the incident.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

“I don’t know… it’s very confusing because if it was an actual active live shooting, then I don’t know why we would necessarily be continuing with the dinner, but maybe it wasn’t?” he said. “Or maybe it’s all very contained and everything’s very safe and so, that’s all I got.”

The dinner did not resume after the shooting. An alleged shooter, 31-year-old Cole Allen, was subsequently taken into custody.

Trump was later asked about an alleged manifesto that Allen sent to family members in a *60 Minutes* interview on Sunday, including a segment in which he purportedly wrote: "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."

"I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you're horrible people,” Trump snapped at interviewer Norah O'Donnell. “He did write that. I'm not a rapist, I didn't rape anybody.”

When O’Donnell noted that Allen did not mention Trump by name, the president interjected: "Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I get associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated."

- Breaking News

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Breaking”