Trump: How to Get Rich

Gossip

Whether you’re building a luxury apartment or producing a beauty pageant, you’ve got to give the people what they want.

In a book like this one, that means some good advice, some wisdom, a little bit of gossip, and a glimmer of fame.

I’ve done my best to give you some wisdom and advice. Now, here’s a Palm Beach morality tale about gossip and fame:

I had a friend who was rich and successful and very married. For months, I kept hearing a rumor that he was having an affair with an equally successful businesswoman who was also very married. It was hard to believe. She was drop-dead gorgeous and could probably have had any guy she wanted. My friend was not a likely choice.

The rumors persisted, and then one day my friend invited me out to dinner with the gorgeous woman and her husband. I told him the invitation seemed strange to me. For a long time, I’ve been hearing you’re having an affair with her. Wouldn’t you find it a little uncomfortable having dinner with her in front of her husband?

Surprisingly, my friend confirmed that he was having the affair, that the woman’s husband didn’t know, and that he (my friend) was totally in love, something which he felt his wife, who was as tough as nails, would not exactly appreciate or understand.

Without revealing any of my friend’s secrets, I told my girlfriend, Melania, to prepare for a wild evening.

We had dinner at a restaurant. Normally, I would have been watching the scene with great amusement, but the businesswoman’s husband was also a friend of mine, and so I was in a precarious position. There we all sat, as though nothing was happening, but we could all feel tension in the air. As we left, I watched my friend grab the businesswoman around the waist in a more than familiar fashion. Her husband was out of sight when this happened, but it was clear to me that, despite my disbelief and amazement, there was something going on between the two.

Over the next few weeks, my friend called me incessantly, proclaiming his love for the woman. He said he would do anything to be with her, and that she was also in love with him. His calls became so frequent that Melania asked, Why does he keep calling you? What’s going on? When I told Melania about the affair, she also found it hard to believe. As I said, this businesswoman is an amazing beauty and my friend is not exactly Brad Pitt—although he is very rich and some women find him handsome.

Finally, after a number of phone calls, I said, Look, are you bullshitting me or is this for real?

He said, It is! It is! I want to come over and see you and I’ll prove it. He didn’t have to prove anything to me. What difference did it make? But I invited him over anyway.

When he arrived, he told me how they’d met, how the relationship was going, all the sordid details. I still wasn’t sure I believed him, but then he played an answering machine tape of a call she had made to him. She said the kind of intimate things only a lover would say. It was truly down and dirty, and I definitely recognized her voice. There was no longer any doubt in my mind about what was taking place.

For a while, my friend continued to call me to say how much he loved this woman. If I was in Palm Beach when he called me, I would just watch the television and politely listen to what he was saying. I felt more like his psychiatrist than anything else.

Then the shit hit the fan! The woman’s husband had found out, phoned my friend, and threatened to kill him. But what really bothered my friend was the next call he received—from the woman, saying she would never see him or talk to him again, and that if she did, her husband would tell my friend’s wife everything about the affair. My friend was devastated. Afterward, he repeatedly tried to reach his ex-lover, but she refused to respond.

As usually happens, my friend’s wife found out. Probably, the businesswoman’s husband had called her, but who knows?

About six months later, I saw the businesswoman at a gallery and she confronted me. Donald, she said, I hear you’ve been spreading rumors all over town about me. It’s terrible what you’ve done, and the rumors about me and [X] aren’t true. Can you imagine me going out with him? After listening to her accusations and denials for fifteen minutes, I realized she is one of the greatest salespeople I have ever known, because if I had not heard her voice on that answering machine tape, I would have completely believed her. She told me she couldn’t believe people would even think she would go out with my friend. Why would I want to? What did he have? Give me a break!

I figured that was the end of it, but then I realized that my friend had not called me in some time. I was wondering how he was doing, so I phoned him to say hello. He wasn’t in and didn’t return my call. I phoned again, and again he didn’t call back. I was worried, so I called a third time and a fourth time. No response.

Later, I found out that his wife had blamed me for the entire affair. She thought I had introduced him to this woman. Apparently, she told him that if he ever spoke to me again, she would divorce him.

It turns out he had used me as a scapegoat. The funny thing is, I wouldn’t have minded and would have helped him out and played along if he’d had the decency, as a good friend, to call me and say, Look, I have a problem. Can I blame it on you? Even if it meant he wouldn’t have been able to see me or speak to me again, I would have accepted it and been glad to have helped keep his marriage together. But he never made that call to me. He did everything without an explanation.

Now when I see him at a restaurant or an event, nothing is said. But he knows, and I know.

I heard he was still suffering through his marriage. As a means of reconciliation, he bought his wife some tremendous jewelry. Apparently, she made him return it because it wasn’t big enough or expensive enough. He had to go back and buy her something even bigger and better.