Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized the makers of the biopic The Apprentice after rumors resurfaced that he violently sexually abused his ex-wife Ivana.
The film, starring Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Republican operative Roy Cohn, features a stomach-churning scene in which Trump throws Ivana, his first wife, to the ground and sexually assaults her as she screams for him to stop.
While the scene has already sparked controversy, Trump today broke his silence on the film, which was released in the US on Friday, claiming that he and his ex-wife, who died in 2022, had a “great relationship… until the day that she died.’
He wrote on Truth Social: ‘A fake and classless movie written about me called The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without permission?) will hopefully ‘bomb’.
“It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, laid out just before the 2024 presidential election, to try to hurt the greatest political movement in our country’s history: ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
“My ex-wife, Ivana, was a kind and wonderful person, and I had a wonderful relationship with her until the day she died. The author of this pile of garbage, Gabe Sherman, a lowlife and talentless hack who has long been widely discredited, knew that, but chose to ignore it.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (pictured, right) has criticized the makers of the biopic The Apprentice after reports resurfaced that he violently sexually abused his ex-wife Ivana (pictured, left).
The films star Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump (photo, left) and Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump (photo, right)
“So sad that HUMAN STUFF, like the people involved in this hopefully failed venture, are allowed to say and do whatever they want to harm a political movement much bigger than us.”
The scene in The Apprentice is taken from a court deposition Ivana made during her divorce from Trump in 1990, which she later recanted in 2015 during his first presidential campaign.
According to Harry Hurt III, a journalist covering the case said Trump was furious that a “scalp reduction” he had requested to get rid of a bald spot was painful.
Enraged at Ivana for recommending the surgeon, Trump, according to Hurt, pulled out a handful of his wife’s hair and began sexually assaulting her.
The next morning he asked her menacingly, “Does it hurt?”
According to the film writer Gabriel Sherman: ‘the scene she described in the divorce papers was actually much more graphic and brutal than the scene we dramatized in the film.”
Both Trump and the film’s financier Dan Snyder, a close friend of the Republican candidate, unsuccessfully filed cease-and-desist letters to get the film canned.
Snyder financed the film expecting it to portray Trump positively.
But the pair may not have to worry about anyone even seeing the film, given its disappointing box office performance during its opening weekend.
Sebastian Stan (left) stars as the businessman turned politician, while Jeremy Strong plays his lawyer Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova (right) plays Trump’s ex-wife Ivana
Donald Trump’s biopic The Apprentice has received mostly positive reviews from critics who have praised it as an “upbeat” and fast-paced story with strong performances.
Ivana (photo, left) was married to Donald Trump (photo, right) from 1977 to 1990
Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, gestures during a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena on Sunday, October 13, 2024
It only earned $1.58 million, despite a $16 million production budget and a release in 1,750 theaters.
The opening day results were especially disappointing, with the film grossing about $150,000 on Thursday.
Despite these challenges, the film, starring Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Republican operative Roy Cohn, has received mostly positive reviews.
Meanwhile, production company Briarcliff Entertainment is reportedly aiming to have the film considered for awards.
In a largely positive review, The New York Times called the film “cheerfully vulgar” and said there was a “surprising” resemblance between the leads Sebastian and Jeremy and the real men they portray.
Reviewer Manohla Dargis wrote, “Each actor has clearly made a careful study of his character’s real-life counterpart, his mannerisms, how he moves and especially his voice.”
She added: “The film encourages you to laugh at its extremes, its vanity and boastfulness. The one thing the filmmakers don’t prepare you for, even though you should know better, is the magnitude of the American tragedy that quickly unfolds before you. .’