In May 1975, Warhol attended President Gerald Ford's state dinner in honor of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the White House.

Early in his career, Warhol deliberately gave reporters conflicting accounts of his background, habits, and working methods, treating the press as the subject of a study. As he told People Weekly in 1976: "I used to like to give different information to different magazines because it was like putting a tracer on where people get their information." By planting small inconsistencies, he watched how stories circulated and evolved, turning interviews into part of his ongoing play with persona.

In public, Warhol relied on an impersonal style of communication, mirroring his impulse to distance himself from the creation of his own artwork. He often hid behind a dazed expression and deadpan remarks—"gee," "uh," "really?"—and seemed to relish performing as a kind of "monosyllabic oddity" or "Keatonesque idiot savant" to the media. He once said, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me. There I am, there's nothing behind it." Journalist Jerry Adler observed that what Warhol projected was "not merely nothing, but nothingness—a streak of nihilism… It is the charisma of the void; what draws people to Warhol is not his magnetism, but a vacuum."

In private, however, Warhol could reveal a markedly different side from his carefully constructed public persona. Former Interview editor Bob Colacello recalled that, in more intimate moments, Warhol expressed deep uncertainty about human relationships, noting that he often struggled to understand why others were happy. When Colacello suggested he show more emotion toward his boyfriend, Warhol replied, "If I let myself have emotions I would have a nervous breakdown." Photographer Billy Name similarly stated that Warhol's "personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front."