One different move, and boom there goes the future. With ‘What Ifs’ constantly perturbing our minds, Oscar winner Emma Thompson’s latest life confession, involving Donald Trump, puts a lot into perspective. As the British actress said it herself, had one decision gone the other way, she could’ve essentially “changed the course of American history.”
66-year-old Dame Emma Thompson, who has a net worth of $40 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, recently recalled a history that never was. She disclosed that the present day US president once tried to ask her out on a date the same day she got divorced. Digging deeper into the details of the unprecedented, the Left-wing star opened up about the instance at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. However, this is not the first time she has talked about it.
Once upon a time, Trump tried to ask Emma Thompson out
Ironically, when the said incident took shape, the actress was filming the 1998 film Primary Colors, a feature loosely based on Former Democrat POTUS Bill Clinton’s rise to presidential power. As per her account, Trump rang her phone the very minute she was sitting in her trailer during the filming process.
“Hello, this is Donald Trump,” the MAGA leader said on the phone, according to the Love Actually actress. As further quoted by the Telegraph, the actress was left tongue-tied, given the development. She went on to ask him if there was something she could help him with.
“Then he said: ‘I’d love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.'” The Sense and Sensibility star responded graciously, calling the gesture “sweet” on the phone. Eventually thanking Trump for the call, she reverted that she would back to him about the offer.
Going even deeper into her side of the store, she was soon hit with the realisation at the time that Donald Trump had basically asked her out on the very day her divorce decree had come through. “And I bet he’s got people looking for suitable people he could take out on his arm. You know, a nice divorcee, that’s what he was looking for,” she added.
Both had separated from their respective partners at the time
As for how the Republican politician stumbled upon Thompson’s number, she said he came across it in her trailer. “I mean, that’s stalking,” the actress quipped. Dame Emma was previously married to actor Kenneth Brannagh, but ultimately went her own way in 1995. Subsequently, she struck up a romance with her Sense and Sensibility co-star Greg Wise. They tied the knot in Scotland in 2003.
Coincidentally, Trump had also split up from his second wife, Marla Maples, at the time. They got hitched in 1993.
While at the Switzerland festival, Thompson looked back at the faint possibility of what would have happened had she gotten romantically involved with the MAGA boss. “I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump, and then I would have a story to tell. I could have changed the course of American history,” she said.
‘Women who spurned Trump’
In a parallel universe, another top actress could’ve potentially been in the running for the US First Lady post instead of Melania Trump. Nearly a decade ago, Salma Hayek laid bare how Trump attempted to ask her out shortly before his 2016 presidential win. The alleged situation went down despite the Mexican star having a boyfriend at the time.
“When I met that man, I had a boyfriend, and he tried to befriend him to get my home phone number,” she said on ‘El Show del Mandril’ on Radio Centre 93.9 in Los Angeles. “He got my number and would call me to invite me out.”
Hayek rejected his attempts to strike up a relationship with her, saying that she wouldn’t go out with him even if she didn’t have a boyfriend. What followed was an alleged revenge scheme. “Someone told the National Enquirer—I won’t say who, but everyone knows anything he wants out in the open appears in the National Enquirer—that he didn’t want to go out with me because I was too short,” the Frida star recounted.
Back in 2017, the Guardian went on to actually churn out an article titled, “Jog On, Don: Emma Thompson, Salma Hayek and the women who spurned Trump.” According to it, the late Princess Diana, Madonna, Australian golfer Jan Stephenson and actress Candice Bergen, who was at college with Trump, are believed to be some other high-profile women who turned down his advances.