Hillary Clinton has shared a photo of her dancing in a salsa bar during her time as the US secretary of state in a supportive message to Finland’s prime minister.
The image shows Mrs Clinton with her hand in the air in Cafe Havana, in Cartagena, Colombia, during a break from the America’s summit in 2012.
“As Ann Richards said ‘Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels’,” she wrote.
“Here’s me in Cartagena while I was there for a meeting as secretary of state. Keep dancing, Sanna Marin.”
The message came after videos emerged of the Finnish PM dancing with friends in a private home, which sparked criticism of her leadership and led to her taking a drugs test.
The married mother-of-one, who has adamantly denied ever taking drugs, said she had to take the test, which came back negative, for her “own legal protection”.
“I had some time off, and I spent it with my friends. And I didn’t do anything illegal,” she said at the time.
In the clips, six people could be seen dancing and lip-synching to a song, including Mrs Marin, and she is later seen dancing on her knees with her hands behind her head.
In another video, she could be seen dancing with male popstar Olavi Uusivirta at a Helsinki nightclub, with people claiming it showed him kissing her neck – which Ms Marin has denied.
Just days later, an image emerged online of two female social media influencers kissing and posing naked at her official residence while at a party.
The 36-year-old apologised for the photo, saying it was “not appropriate”, but said that “nothing extraordinary happened at the get-together”.
Ms Marin, who has been married to her husband Markus Raikkonen since 2020, is the world’s youngest head of state.
While she came under scrutiny for the clips, she also received an outpouring of support online, with hundreds of women posting videos of themselves dancing with the hashtag #SolidaritywithSanna.
Many people suggested the Finnish PM had faced far more scrutiny than her male counterparts like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.
