Gemi Bordelon is a Louisiana-born businesswoman, entrepreneur, and community figure who became an unlikely internet sensation in January 2020 when a video of her dancing to the “Get the Gat” challenge at the White House went viral across social media platforms. Known in professional circles for her leadership role at Bollinger Shipyards — one of the largest privately-owned shipbuilding companies in the United States — she had spent years building a respected career and raising a family far from the public eye before a spontaneous dance moment changed all of that in minutes.
| Quick Facts | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Gemi Bordelon |
| Date of Birth | February 1, 1975 |
| Age (2025) | 50 years old |
| Birthplace | Louisiana, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Education | Glenbrook High School (1994); LSU (Business Studies) |
| Husband | Ben Bordelon (married 1999) |
| Children | Three — daughter Brooke, and two sons |
| Professional Role | Chair & CEO, Bollinger Shipyards (since 2000) |
| Viral Moment | “Get the Gat” dance at the White House — January 17, 2020 |
| Residence | Lafourche Parish, Louisiana |
| Net Worth (est.) | $750,000 – $3 million |
What makes Gemi Bordelon a genuinely compelling figure is the contrast between how the world discovered her and who she actually is. The viral clip offered a glimpse of warmth, confidence, and playfulness. But beneath that thirty-second moment lies a substantive story: a woman who married into one of Louisiana’s most prominent industrial families, stepped into a demanding executive role in a traditionally male-dominated industry, and built a life grounded in faith, community, and family — long before any camera found her dancing in the White House corridor.
Roots in Louisiana: A Foundation Built on Community and Values
Born on February 1, 1975, in Louisiana, Gemi grew up fully immersed in the culture of a state where identity, family, and community are inseparable. Louisiana is not simply a place of origin for people raised there — it is a set of values, a way of relating to the world, a pride that travels with you wherever you go. That spirit is evident in everything known about Gemi’s public persona: her loyalty to LSU, her presence at community events, her willingness to dance freely in the hallways of the White House because the moment called for it.
She completed her schooling at Glenbrook High School, graduating in 1994, and went on to attend Louisiana State University, where she pursued a degree in business studies. Her time at LSU proved formative on multiple levels — academically, it gave her the management and strategic foundations she would carry into the corporate world; socially, it deepened the connections to the university’s athletic community that would later explain her presence at one of college football’s most celebratory moments.
Those who knew Gemi before she became a public figure describe her consistently in the same terms: grounded, strong-willed, genuine, and deeply committed to the people around her. The values embedded in her Louisiana upbringing were not performance — they were character.
Ben Bordelon: Love, Football, and the Shipbuilding Dynasty
To understand Gemi Bordelon’s world fully, it helps to understand who she married. Ben Bordelon is a former LSU Tigers offensive lineman who played college football from 1993 to 1996, earning second-team All-Southeastern Conference honors in 1996. He briefly played professional football for the San Diego Chargers in 1997 before transitioning into the family business.
That family business is Bollinger Shipyards — a company founded by Ben’s grandfather, Donald G. Bollinger, and based in Lockport, Louisiana. The company builds and repairs vessels for the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and commercial clients, and it represents one of the most significant maritime enterprises in the American Gulf South. Ben joined Bollinger in 2000 as a Project Manager, rose through the ranks to Executive Vice President of Repair and then Chief Operating Officer, and in 2014 succeeded his uncle Boysie Bollinger as President and CEO.
Gemi and Ben married in 1999 — confirmed by their daughter Brooke, who celebrated their 17th anniversary in a 2016 Instagram post. Their marriage brought Gemi into the orbit of the Bollinger family enterprise, and she did not merely occupy a peripheral role. She assumed genuine leadership responsibilities at the company, becoming recognized as its Chair and CEO — a significant position in a multi-hundred-million-dollar industrial operation where women in top leadership remain underrepresented.
Bollinger Shipyards: Leading in a Male-Dominated World
Gemi’s professional story at Bollinger Shipyards is one that rarely gets told in full, overshadowed as it is by the viral dance clip that introduced her to the internet. But it deserves to be told, because it represents something genuinely significant.
She joined the company in 2000 and moved steadily into executive responsibility. As Chair and CEO, she has been involved in strategic decision-making for a company that builds vessels for two of the U.S. government’s most demanding clients — the Navy and the Coast Guard. These are contracts that require precision engineering, rigorous compliance with federal standards, and the kind of management discipline that does not tolerate shortcuts or missed deadlines.
| Bollinger Shipyards at a Glance | Details |
|---|---|
| Founded by | Donald G. Bollinger |
| Headquarters | Lockport, Louisiana |
| Primary Clients | U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, commercial operators |
| Ben Bordelon’s Role | President & CEO (since 2014) |
| Gemi’s Role | Chair & CEO |
| Industry | Maritime / Shipbuilding & Repair |
The shipbuilding industry is historically and persistently male-dominated — not just in its workforce but in its executive ranks. For Gemi to hold the Chair and CEO title at a major operation of this scale is not a decorative credential. It reflects a real accumulation of business knowledge, leadership experience, and the trust of a family enterprise that does not promote carelessly.
Her presence in that role also carries quiet symbolic weight. Louisiana’s industrial economy — built significantly around oil, gas, and maritime sectors — has not historically been welcoming terrain for women at the top. Gemi’s trajectory represents a shift, however understated she may be about it.
The White House Moment: A Dance That Stopped the Internet
On January 17, 2020, the LSU Tigers football team visited the White House to celebrate their national championship victory over the Clemson Tigers — a 42-25 win that capped an undefeated season and cemented the 2019 LSU squad as one of the greatest in college football history. The White House visit was festive, and someone in the group decided the occasion called for the “Get the Gat” challenge — a dance set to a Lil Elt track of the same name that had become synonymous with the LSU team’s celebratory culture that season.
Gemi was present because of the Bordelon family’s established connections to Louisiana’s congressional delegation and the state’s political and business community. She wasn’t there as a fan who snuck into a photo — she was there as someone whose family and community ties made the invitation natural.
What happened next was entirely spontaneous. A video captured Gemi dancing with the LSU players with complete confidence and evident joy — matching their energy beat for beat, grinning, fully in the moment. The clip circulated on social media and within hours it had accumulated millions of views. The comments were overwhelmingly delighted. Who was this woman? How did she keep up with college athletes half her age? And why was she so effortlessly fun?
For a brief period, her identity was a mystery. Speculation ranged from White House staffer to team employee. The answer came from the most direct possible source: Gemi’s daughter Brooke, who spotted the video circulating and tweeted simply — “It would be my mother.” That single tweet resolved the mystery and added a layer of wholesome charm that only deepened the public’s affection for the clip.
WBRZ, a Baton Rouge-based news station, subsequently confirmed the details of who Gemi was and why she had been at the White House, providing the fuller context behind the moment.
What the Viral Moment Revealed
The cultural resonance of Gemi Bordelon’s White House dance was not accidental, even if the moment itself was unplanned. It arrived during a period when LSU football occupied a singular place in American sports consciousness — a team that had just dismantled every opponent in its path, led by quarterback Joe Burrow, who would go on to win the Heisman Trophy by a record margin. The team’s energy was infectious, and the “Get the Gat” dance had become a symbol of that energy throughout the season.
Gemi’s participation in that moment said something about her that no carefully crafted media appearance could have communicated: she was genuinely part of that community. Not performing it, not observing it from a polite distance, but living inside it with authentic enthusiasm. That quality — the absence of self-consciousness in a moment of public visibility — is what made the clip resonate far beyond the usual cycle of viral videos.
It also revealed something about how Louisiana identity actually operates. There is a warmth and collectivism to Gulf South culture that shows up in exactly these kinds of moments — a willingness to celebrate together, without hierarchy, when the occasion calls for it. Gemi embodied that perfectly.
Family Life: Private by Choice, Strong by Design
Despite the public visibility that the viral moment brought, Gemi Bordelon has maintained a deliberate boundary around her family life. She and Ben have three children together: a daughter named Brooke, who attended and graduated from LSU in 2020 continuing the family’s university tradition, and two sons whose names have not been shared publicly. The family lives in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana — a community setting that reflects their preference for roots over spotlight.
Brooke’s role in the White House story — that one tweet — was itself revealing. It spoke to a family comfortable enough with its own identity to step into a viral moment with humor rather than anxiety. The Bordelons did not scramble to manage the narrative or issue statements. Brooke simply confirmed what everyone was wondering, with the casual confidence of someone who had grown up in a household where authenticity was the baseline.
Ben and Gemi’s partnership across both family and business dimensions has been described by those in their community as genuinely collaborative. They operate within an enterprise where personal and professional life overlap constantly — the Bollinger family business touches everything — and they have managed that integration without the instability such arrangements often produce.
Community, Faith, and Louisiana Identity
Christian faith is cited consistently as a guiding force in Gemi’s life and decision-making. Her Louisiana heritage and her faith together form the value framework that underpins her approach to business, family, and community engagement. She attends LSU events, supports local charitable initiatives, and participates in community functions in ways that go well beyond the performative philanthropy common among people of similar wealth and influence.
Her community involvement is practical and local rather than brand-building. The Bordelon family’s connections to Lafourche Parish and the broader Louisiana Gulf Coast run deep — these are places where the Bollinger name carries real weight and real responsibility, and Gemi has taken that responsibility seriously.
Gemi Bordelon’s Net Worth
Gemi Bordelon’s net worth is estimated between $750,000 and $3 million, though no official figure has been confirmed publicly. Her wealth reflects her executive role at Bollinger Shipyards, her business involvement across related industries, and the financial standing of the Bordelon family more broadly. It does not reflect — and was never built around — celebrity, media appearances, or the viral fame that arrived unexpectedly in 2020.
That distinction matters. Gemi’s financial standing was established through years of quiet professional work long before the internet knew her name. The viral moment added visibility, not income. The foundation had already been built.
Conclusion
Gemi Bordelon did not go looking for fame. She was dancing in a hallway because the moment called for it, because that is the kind of person she is — present, joyful, unguarded in the right company. The internet found her there and made her briefly famous, but the person behind the clip had been quietly building something far more substantial for decades. A career in industrial leadership. A family rooted in Louisiana tradition. A community presence shaped by genuine faith and belonging. The dance was thirty seconds. The life behind it spans fifty years and counting — and it is the life, not the clip, that deserves to be remembered.
