Trump Posed as His Own Publicist to Brag About Women 'Chasing Him' But Got Recognized: "It Was..."
Donald Trump turned into his own 'PR' when he faked a relationship with rising Italian model Carla Bruni in 1991. Trump who was dating actress Marla Maples posted a sensational front-page article on June 26 in the New York Post announcing his relationship with the future first lady of France. When a reporter from People's magazine tried to verify the news the real estate magnate tricked her by posing as a publicist named John Miller. “It doesn’t matter to [Donald] if Maples talks; he truly doesn’t care," he said while confirming that he had indeed broken up with Maples.
"As for that diamond ring Trump bought Marla several weeks ago. It was never an engagement ring,” Miller fed the reporter with fabricated pieces of information during the call. He also boasted that a horde of attractive ladies were frantically pursuing 'The Donald', citing Kim Basinger and Madonna as examples. “Important, beautiful women call him all the time,” Trump's alter personality gloated. However, journalist Sue Carswell had her doubts since Trump hardly tried to disguise his original voice.
Hence Carswell taped their conversation and played it in front of people who knew the billionaire. Columnist Cindy Adams instantly recognized and said: “There is no John Miller. That’s Donald.” A former close associate who also ID’d the future president's voice reacted in disbelief: “Is he whacked out, or what?” Unfortunately, Maples herself had the most telling response. She was shocked when she recognized Trump after hearing a snippet. “I’m shocked and devastated,” she said after listening to him admit about the alleged relationship with the Italian supermodel.
In 2017, Bruni refuted the claims that she had an affair with Trump while he was in a relationship with Maples. “Actually, the whole situation was very vague and just did not exist. So I was very surprised when he went to the press," she told in an exclusive with The Daily Beast. "That's because it was a lie," she sharply said in response to a question about how it felt to have the fictitious affair appear as one of the top results when her name is searched on Google. During Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, The Washington Post unearthed the voice recordings and accused the Republican leader of bragging about himself.
Trump outrightly denied speaking as 'John Miller' or knowing anything about the 1991 phone call. "This was so farcical, that he pretended to be his own publicist. Here was this so-called billion-dollar real estate mogul, and he can't hire his own publicist," Carswell told the Post back then. "It also said something about the control he wanted to keep of the news cycle flowing with this story, and I can't believe he thought he'd get away with it." However, when the voice clipping was played on the Today Show Trump refuted it saying, "You're telling me about it for the first time and it doesn't sound like my voice at all."
