Child reporter who scored exclusive interview with President Barack Obama aged just 11 dies aged 23

A schoolboy reporter who shot to fame after interviewing President Barack Obama at the age of just 11 has died aged 23.

Damon Weaver died of natural causes on May 1, his sister Candace Hardy said on Saturday. Further details were not released.

He had been studying communications at Albany State University in Georgia, and planned to continue the journalism career that began with a spectacular scoop.

Weaver was just 11-years-old when he interviewed the president in August 2009. He is pictured in his suit outside the White House after his huge exclusive

Weaver was 11 when he interviewed Obama for 10 minutes in the Diplomatic Room on August 13, 2009, asking questions that focused primarily on education.

He covered school lunches, bullying, conflict resolution and how to succeed.

Weaver also asked about the criticism Obama was facing as president, bullying he might have faced in school, how young Americans could help improve the country, and the president’s well-known love of basketball.

Weaver then asked Obama to be his ‘homeboy,’ saying then-Vice President Joe Biden had already accepted.

‘Absolutely,’ a smiling Obama said, shaking the boy’s hand.

‘It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,’ Hardy told the Palm Beach Post of the ‘life-changing’ interview.

Damon Weaver, at the age of 10, walks in a park near his home in Pahokee, Florida. Weaver who gained national acclaim when he interviewed President Barack Obama at the White House in 2009 has died of natural causes, his family says. Weaver was 23 when he died May 1, 2021

He used that meeting to later interview Oprah Winfrey and athletes like NBA star Dwyane Wade.

‘He was just a nice person, genuine, very intelligent; Hardy said. 'Very outspoken, outgoing. He never said no to anybody.'

Weaver got his start in fifth grade when he volunteered for the school newscast at K.E. Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary in a farm community on the shores of Lake Okeechobee.