Whatever frustrations the Washington, DC, press corps has with President Donald Trump, I sympathize. He was pretty much the same when Page Six covered his every move in the 1990s.
It was always easy to get Trump on the phone, but some of his boasting wasn’t always … accurate.
When Trump opened the Mar-a-Lago club in 1995, I debunked his bogus claim that Prince Charles and Norman Mailer were members. The next time I saw him, he said, “You were tough on me.”
He couldn’t have been thrilled either when Page Six reported in 1987 on a beautiful woman from Georgia, Marla Maples, who was dating a prominent — and very-much-married — real estate mogul. We didn’t name the mogul. Until we did.
That said, Trump could have a pretty thick skin. He invited me to his 1993 wedding to Maples at the Plaza Hotel, where guests included O.J. Simpson and his doomed wife Nicole, Howard Stern and Graydon Carter, who likened Trump to P.T. Barnum and declared, “This is the triumph of romance over finance.”
I also went to Donald’s 2005 wedding to Melania Knauss in Palm Beach, where the well-wishers included Bill and Hillary Clinton, Russell Simmons, Matt Lauer, Heidi Klum, Billy Joel and Shaquille O’Neal.
I served as a judge for the Miss Universe pageant when Trump owned the franchise. He was proud there was no talent competition, as Miss America has.
“Nobody cares about talent. These are the most beautiful women in the world,” he’d say. And he wasn’t shy about sharing his views about who should win, at least when he was out of earshot of the regulators from NBC’s Standards and Practices office.
“I really like Miss Trinidad and Tobago,” Donald said one year. And the winner was . . . Miss Trinidad and Tobago.
There’s no one quite like Donald Trump. That said, I was as surprised as anyone when he started running for president. Even more surprised when he started winning primaries.
But while the chattering class dismissed him as a braggadocious huckster, Trump was playing past them. If covering him for Page Six taught me anything, it was that The Donald — for all the mockery — was incredibly popular. And he loves being the center of attention.
When I saw Trump nearly a year ago, I told him what people were saying. “But they’re wrong,” I said. “I tell them you’re loving this. You are having the time of your life.” He didn’t disagree.
Richard Johnson was the editor of Page Six from 1985-1990 and 1993-2010.