E online An interview is an interview is an interview.

Except when it comes to Leonardo DiCaprio.

In what's already being dubbed "Leogate," ABC News and the White House are bucking heads as to whether the Titanic star was ever supposed to interview President Clinton during their brief 15 minute encounter March 31.

This much is indisputable: DiCaprio, on assignment at the White House as part of an Earth Day-themed ABC documentary called Planet Earth 2000, quizzed the President on a variety of ecological issues, including global warming and fossil fuels. After the White House initially confirmed the summit, ABC News, under fire from its legions of full-time journalists, downplayed the DiCaprio-Clinton interview. In an email to his staff, network news president David Westin noted that Leo was to "be doing a walk through taking a look at some of the things the White House has done internally with an environmental slant....We did not send him to interview the President....No one is that stupid."

Westin explained that Leo, ABC and the camera crew were surprised when "the President announced he wanted to sit down and do an interview with DiCaprio.

"It's awfully hard to say, 'No, no, Mr. President,' " Westin told the Washington Post. To his fired-up employees, Westin said that Leonardo was only "a sincere, informed celebrity...all roles of journalists must be played by journalists." But Westin's statements did little to soothe disgruntled ABC newsies, who saw their boss' move as old-fashioned back-pedaling. Said one producer in the Post: "There is a line that has been crossed often in the past couple of years between entertainment and news. The line has been pushed and pushed, and I think this pushes it way too far beyond where it's been before."

While they fend off angry employees on one side, ABC News and Westin are also facing the ire of the White House. "It's always been clear that [ABC News] wanted [DiCaprio] to come in and interview the president on the issue of climate change," White House spokesman Jake Siewert told E! Online.

"[Leo] was fine. He didn't pretend to be a journalist, he made it clear he was just acting as a concerned citizen. He was obviously prepared and was very educated on the issues. He made a good faith effort,"

Siewert added. "[ABC News] created a mess by pretending this was something it wasn't." Added DiCaprio's publicist, Ken Sunshine, "We were preparing questions in consultation with ABC [News] producers. It was clear it was going to be a Q&A."

Fear not, intrepid Leo fans, despite earlier reports from ABC reps, Sunshine confirmed to E! Online that the interview will now definitely air. Besides the ABC documentary, the green-conscious thespian will also be chairing the Earth Day 2000 Washington, D.C., celebration and writing an essay for Time magazine to appear next week. Hmmm....Time and ABC News. We're starting to question our own job security.

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