MAGA ‘Maxim’ Model ‘Terrified’ That Employers Would Discover Her ‘Secret Trump Support,’ Feared Blacklist

During a point in time in American history in which public support of President Trump can lead to a variety of altercations and repercussions, it appears that at least one prominent model is now unafraid to speak her own truth and to own up to her allegiance to the 45th president.

In a recent interview with the New York Post, Maxim model Elizabeth Pipko recounts the experiences and adversity she has faced as a Trump supporter — and campaign volunteer — while working in an industry with little love for the MAGA movement.

Citing her moderate political inclinations and admiration of President Trump for his forthrightness and honesty, Pipko opens the interview with a bit of background as to why she would eventually end up heading to Trump Tower to volunteer for his campaign. After snagging a job as a campaign coordinator, Pipko claims that she immediately knew that she would have to keep this reality a secret from any influences in the world of professional modeling.

“It was clear from the start that, if I wanted to survive in modeling, I couldn’t tell anyone about my new job. Once, after working a 10-hour-day on the Trump campaign, I went to meet with my manager (who was not affiliated with a modeling agency). He and a colleague were enraged, screaming about how much they hate Trump. My manager kept saying how evil the people who work for him must be and that he would never work with anyone who supported him. I was terrified they would find out that I was one of the so-called evil people.”

Making up a variety of white lies in order to cover for her many absences to Trump Tower — excuses ranging from her having a figure skating hobby to simply running various errands — Elizabeth Pipko makes the case that she truly lived a second life in order to elude detection as a Trump supporter. She recounts an instance in which “15 other models were bashing him [Trump]. I just sat in the corner and pretended to be on my phone. I didn’t want to be ostracized.” She also met another Trump-supporting top-tier model from Wilhelmina at Trump Tower. That male model — who remains anonymous — asked Pipko to keep his secret, as well.

This article serves as a late revelation, though a much more public one, for the MAGA-allied model. Having met her husband, Darren Centinello, while working on the Trump campaign — Pipko is no longer hiding from the scrutiny of her peers. She event went as far as to make the invitations for her wedding to Centinello in the form of red MAGA hats, complete with the cheeky slogan of “Make Marriage Great Again.”

In the midst of her explication, Pipko makes it clear that — at this point at least — she no longer cares if she loses her modeling gigs and the social networks she has fostered inside the beauty industry. Going public with her support of President Trump, for her at least, has become a personal truth and a matter of political and individual conviction, a point she reiterates throughout the somewhat lengthy interview.

I was a secret Trump supporter: Model feared politics would kill her career https://t.co/cpHgxtiOtt pic.twitter.com/q5Dh5zGbRQ

— New York Post (@nypost) January 26, 2019

While it may be a somewhat surprising account, it is perhaps not an isolated incident. In an op-ed written by Curtis Ellis for the Hill, the author describes the phenomenon of the “silent Trump supporter” — a phenomenon that Ellis claims has gone global.

“The 2016 election gave us the ‘Silent Trump Supporter’ — Trump voters who would not reveal their true sympathies to pollsters. This was a great mystery at the time, but seeing now how Trump supporters are routinely denigrated, harassed and vilified, their silence was understandable if not prescient. In 2018, the Silent Trump Supporter has gone global.”

Whether or not Pipko’s story is unique remains a point of contention. In a time of partisan fracture, wherein the political divide is emphasized and scrutinized to the point of exhaustion, it may come as little surprise that some individuals prefer to remain mute — and to retain their positions in the interim.