Trump Says He'll Sue To Prevent The Movie From Being Seen
Last week, we brought up the new movie— as yet unreleased but debuted at Cannes— about Trump’s early days as a real estate hustler and rapist, The Apprentice. Señor T didn’t like the way he was portrayed and he claims he’s suing to prevent the release. Trump is creating a demand for the movie with all the drama and free publicity. It reminds me of when we released Body Count’s debut album, in 1992. The album came out and it did OK, not great, just OK. Some Ice-T fans and some Lollapalooza fans bought it; radio had no interest. We made a small profit, nothing to write home about, but most debut albums lose money so… I was happy enough. It got into Billboard’s Top 30. Returns started coming back from the big chains, signaling the record was over.
Then Tipper Gore, Joe Lieberman, the Dallas Police Association and Charlton Heston showed up shrieking about Cop Killer and about their issues. Sales though were substantially impacted until Dan Quayle and George Bush weighed in. Once they did— BOOM!! The album exploded and all those returns were turned right around as orders went through the roof. The album quickly hit gold status— and I had the RIAA create a gold record award for Dan Quayle, although my boss asked me not to send it to him til the controversy died down. (I never did and auctioned it instead to raise money to defeat conservatives.) In any case, several things happened. Ice-T became a huge star in movie and TV. It took a long time but in 2021 Body Count finally won a Grammy.
The Apprentice was first conceived in 2018 although it wasn’t actually written until 2023 when Gabriel Sherman was brought on— the guy who wrote The Loudest Voice In The Room: How The Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News— And Divided A Country.
On Friday, Variety confirmed that Trump had sent a 3 page cease and desist letter to block the film’s sale and release. Brent Lang and Katcy Stephan wrote that the film’s producers released a statement responding to Trump’s letter: “The film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president. We want everyone to see it and then decide.”
The movie, which was independently produced, stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Cohn. It presents a damning portrait of the former president as an ethically compromised, philanderer who stiffs contractors and cuts deals with the mob to get his buildings completed. It includes other controversial details, including a scene where Trump rapes his first wife, Ivana, and depicts him abusing amphetamines to lose weight, as well as undergoing liposuction and plastic surgery.
Trump’s camp responded with a blistering note, threatening legal action. “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,” Steven Cheung, Trump campaign communications director, said in a statement.
When reached for comment about the letter, the Trump campaign referred to its earlier statement on the film.
The Apprentice was directed by Ali Abbasi, the Iranian-Danish filmmaker behind Holy Spider and Border, and features a script by Gabriel Sherman, a journalist who covered the Trump administration.
At a press conference in Cannes for The Apprentice, Abbasi responded to Trump’s legal threats. “Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people— they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?” he said. He also offered to screen the movie for Trump, saying, “I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike.”
The Trumpists are wigging out. Cheung’s latest promotion for the movie said “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes 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.”
Can’t wait to see it!
If Trump had liposuction it failed. Bigly. And Trump was FAR more "elite" than 95% of hollywood.
Maybe that's his strategery. Bitch and moan and make his people go see it. What can they possibly see that they won't love? Defrauding subs? rape? racism? His people will only worship him more.