Donald Trump has threatened legal action against a new film that depicts the former president raping his first wife.
The Apprentice stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and explores his life as a businessman in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It received its premiere yesterday (May 20) at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation.
The film features a scene in which Trump is seen pushing his first wife Ivana to the ground and raping her.
A representative of Trump’s campaign team has said they will be “filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers”.
Steven Cheung told Variety: “This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalises lies that have been long debunked. As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
Donald Trump. Photo credit: Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire,” he added.
The film, directed by Ali Abbasi (Border, Holy Spider), begins with a disclaimer that the events depicted are fictionalised. “You have a face like a fucking orange,” Ivana tells him in the film. “You’re getting fat, you’re getting ugly and you’re getting bald.” The Trump character then manhandles his wife and rapes her.
In 1990, Ivana Trump described a similar attack during the deposition in their divorce proceedings. At the time, she described the incident as a rape, but in 1993 she withdrew the accusation. “As a woman I felt violated … I referred to this as a rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense,” she said.
Trump is currently on trial in New York Supreme Court, where he faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records with the intent to commit or conceal other crimes.
It relates to payments he is alleged to have made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels to ensure that she remained silent about an alleged affair between the two, with Trump being accused of breaking campaign finance limits to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election. He is the first former US president ever to be indicted in such a trial.
Trump is also campaigning to win the 2024 presidential election, and he was recently said to be looking for rappers to help get more Black voters. The Boston Herald reported that Trump wants to put on a fundraising event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and is seeking rappers and athletes to attend to encourage more Black and Latin voters to vote for him and the Republican party this November.
The former president also took to social media recently to attack Jimmy Kimmel after the host took jibes at him on his late night show, but managed to confuse him with acting legend Al Pacino in an error-filled rant.
