British actress Emma Thompson has disclosed that she received an unexpected romantic proposition from Donald Trump on the exact day her divorce was finalised in 1998.
The 66-year-old Oscar winner shared the anecdote whilst speaking at a masterclass during the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Friday.
Thompson revealed that the future US president telephoned her trailer whilst she was filming the political comedy Primary Colors, extending an invitation to stay at one of his properties and share dinner together.
The actress quipped that accepting the offer might have altered American political history.
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She characterised Trump’s method of obtaining her private trailer telephone number as “stalking”.
Thompson recounted receiving the unexpected telephone call whilst working on set. “A phone rang in my trailer, and it was Donald Trump. I thought it was a joke. ‘Hi, it’s Donald Trump here,'” she told festival attendees, imitating his voice.
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Initially bewildered by the call, Thompson assumed the property mogul might require assistance. “I said, ‘How can I help you?’ I thought he needed directions,” she explained.
Trump then extended his invitation: “I would love for you to stay in one of my beautiful places, and maybe we could have dinner.”
Thompson responded diplomatically to the surprise proposal. “I just said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll get back to you. Thank you so much for ringing,'” she recalled.
Thompson speculated about the timing of Trump’s approach, noting it coincided precisely with her divorce decree becoming official. “I realised that on that very day my divorce has finally come through. I bet he has people looking all over for suitable people he could take out, for all these nice divorcees,” she said.
The actress expressed astonishment at Trump’s resourcefulness in locating her contact details. “I mean, he found the number of my trailer! That’s stalking!” she exclaimed.
Reflecting on the encounter with humour, Thompson joked about the potential consequences of accepting. “So yes, I could have gone on a date with Donald Trump. I could have changed the course of American history.”
Thompson’s marriage to actor-director Kenneth Branagh ended in 1995 following her discovery of his multiple affairs with other women during film productions.
“I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set,” she told the New Yorker in 2022.
The actress described the devastating impact of discovering Branagh’s infidelity, particularly his affair with Helena Bonham Carter during the 1994 production of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
“I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely,” she explained.
Trump himself had recently divorced his second wife, Marla Maples, when he contacted Thompson, and had not yet met his future wife, Melania Knauss.