It was true, back then I had at most two glasses of champagne a year.
He looked at me with the same face he made when he found out I was a director. “That’s interesting,” he said. “I don’t drink, either.”
“Not at all?” I said, taking my turn to be surprised.
“I don’t like the taste of alcohol,” he said. “And I find people make poor financial decisions when they’ve been drinking.”
“I know! That’s one of the reasons I don’t drink. I’ve been stripping since I was seventeen, and I can’t tell you how many clubs I’ve been in where girls get drunk and lose their money. I was like, ‘Not for me.’ I totally get it.”
He smiled. “Our businesses,” he said, “are kind of a lot alike, but different.”
“Yeah!” We laughed.
“Well, can I get you a water?”
“Sure.”
We started talking, which meant he proceeded to go on and on without asking me anything about myself. It was one pretentious brag after another. I will spare you. I found myself getting more and more offended. My Louisiana roots were showing, and this was just socially inappropriate. When you’ve invited someone to meet, it can’t be a one-sided conversation. I’m not his therapist, and this was not a job interview.
Plus, I was freaking hungry. I needed a bowl of pretzels, at least, if I was going to sit through this. You said there’d be dinner, I thought. His monologue went on for a good ten or fifteen minutes, which is an eternity when your stomach’s growling and you’re alone with a bore.
“Have you seen my magazine?”
Wow, he actually asked me a question. I shook my head no.
“It’s not out yet, but I have an advance copy,” he said. “Would you like to see it?”
It didn’t matter, he was already up. He grabbed a satchel sitting on the side table and pulled out the magazine to flash it in front of me. I know it was some kind of money magazine with him on the cover, and a lot of people assume it was Forbes because of the timing, but I didn’t even look at it.
“Really?” I snapped, looking up at him. “Does this work for you normally?”
He looked perplexed. Like I’d asked a dog an algebra problem. Reader, I was hangry—the volatile mix of hunger and anger.
“Are you so insecure that you have to brag about yourself,” I continued, “or are you just a fucking asshole? Which is it?”
He was so stunned, he just stood there. I lowered my voice to growl, “Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said in a quiet voice.
I held out my hand, palm up. “Hand it over,” I said. When he didn’t immediately give the magazine to me, I snatched it from him and rolled it up. “Turn around and fucking drop ’em,” I said.
It was a power moment, not at all sexual. It wasn’t dirty play or even foreplay. It was me being pissed off and him being shocked and neither of us wanting to back down from a challenge. He went to take it back and I wouldn’t let him.
“I’m serious!” I said. For a second, I almost lost my nerve. He was still “The Donald,” and he was much older than me. I was twenty-seven, and this guy was more than twice my age—an elder who should be respected.
But he turned, lowering his pants just enough for me to give him a couple of swaps. I got up and tossed the magazine on the side table with every intention of leaving. Because where do you go from that moment?
This is what stopped me: he turned around and said, in a slow, appraising voice, “I like you.” He fixed the belt of his pants and added, “You remind me of my daughter.”
Now, I know everyone has made that sound sexual, and I feel so sorry for Ivanka because she’s had to hear all these things. Yes, he said what he said, but it was not a creepy or sexual conversation. It was not some perverted, “You remind me of my daughter. She’s so hot.” No, it was, “You remind me of my daughter.” And these were the exact words he added: “You’re smart, you’re beautiful. You’re just like her. You’re a woman to be reckoned with.”
“Thank you,” I said. His whole demeanor had changed. His peacock plumage was now folded down and he became a more normal human being.
“Do you know about my daughter? Have you seen her?”
“Yes, she’s very beautiful.” Because she is. She’s stunning. It was a compliment, not a come-on. He seemed to be off-script. He was genuinely shocked that he’d just had his ass whipped. So, this was now the third time that I had seen him shocked. Once when he found out I was a director, then when he found out I didn’t drink, and now that I had spanked him. He was walking around the room, and I could tell a plan was forming in his head.
“Have you ever seen my TV show?” he asked.
Oh, God, I thought, here we go again. When I didn’t answer, he asked, “Have you ever watched The Apprentice?”
“No,” I said, quick and dismissive. I thought we’d gotten past both the pajama seduction and annoying bragging portions of the evening.
“Wait,” he sputtered. “Well, you know what it is. It’s a huge hit.”
“Yeah, I get the gist,” I said. I’m not really a TV person, but the show had become inescapable in the two years it had been on. Reality stars were starting to be in the tabloids I read when I got my nails done. People like Omarosa were suddenly “celebrities,” and “You’re fired” was the big catchphrase.
He stopped pacing to look right at me. “You,” he said, “should be on that show.”
“What?”
“You should be on The Apprentice,” he said. “You’d be fabulous on it. Fabulous. You’d be huge.”
He was using all the outsized, grand words we know him for now. But it wasn’t for show. He was having a genuine moment. An epiphany.
“They’ll never let me on,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I am a porn star and it’s NBC,” I said. “Never gonna happen.”
His lip curled just slightly at the mere suggestion of the word “no.” It gave me an idea about how I could fuck with The Donald.
I leaned in and said slowly, “Even you aren’t that powerful.”
“What do you mean?” he said. “It’s my show.”
“I don’t care. Even you can’t do that.”
Look, in my mind, one of two things was gonna happen: either he does it and I’m on The Apprentice, or I get to say “I told you so” and I take a couple more feathers out of his tail. Both were very appealing to me. I’d take either.
“No, if you want to do it, I think it would be great,” he said, laying out his case. “First of all, it would show the world that you’re not a stereotypical porn star, and people would tune in for the surprise. It would be sensational. Sensational. Second, it would be great for both of us. Imagine the ratings it will bring.”
My friends have asked me if I think he was just leading me on, but I honestly feel that it was a genuine conversation. I could see his wheels turning and watched him do the mental gymnastics of a cost-benefit analysis in his head. I would bring a built-in fan base in a valuable demographic, and me on TV would be shocking, but not in the way people think. I truly believe his initial thought about this was with his brain, not his dick.
“I understand.” I shrugged. “But you can’t do that.”
“No, here’s the thing,” he said. “I have a wild card. Every season I can pick someone, if I so choose, that doesn’t have to be…” He trailed off. To this day I don’t know what the selection and vetting process was, but whatever it was, I would skip right through. “You can be my wild card next year, and I think it would be sensational. This will be great. This could be huge.”