Actress Salma Hayek is catching renewed attention after a 2017 clip from “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” began making the rounds online. In the resurfaced interview, she got candid about an uncomfortable run-in with Donald Trump long before he took office.
According to Hayek, Trump didn’t let the fact that she was in a relationship stop him from shooting his shot. The pint-size starlet says he not only tried to charm her but also disrespected her then-boyfriend in the process.
The clip, reposted by Plano Cinema, is sparking fresh conversation about Trump’s pattern of behavior toward women, particularly one with enough celebrity cachet that she could turn him down.
During the interview, Noah asked, “Is it true that Donald Trump asked you on a date?” Hayek confirmed with a simple “yeah.”
The story reveals Trump’s questionable tactics in attempting to court the Mexican-born actress, beginning with what seemed like an innocent gesture at an event they both attended.
“I was at an event with my boyfriend,” the “Frida” actress explained in the interview.
She described how Trump, seated behind her, noticed she was cold and kindly placed his coat over her shoulders. What appeared initially as a gentleman’s gesture quickly revealed itself as something more calculated.
“I turn around and my boyfriend — so charming, so nice — he said hello [to Trump]. [Trump] said, ‘I’m sorry, your girlfriend, I saw she was cold.’ I said, ‘No, It’s OK. And then he kept talking to my boyfriend,” she said.
Hayek continued narrating how Trump “befriended” her boyfriend and invited the couple to dinner.
The future president then suggested they visit him in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and stay at his hotel if they were ever in New York. During this conversation, Trump requested their phone numbers, appearing to address both of them. However, his true intentions became clear when he “never” contacted her boyfriend again and instead called Hayek directly with an invitation excluding her partner.
“What about my boyfriend? Are you crazy? You asking me out? You know I have a boyfriend,” she said.
When confronted about this behavior, Trump allegedly dismissed Hayek’s relationship, telling her that her boyfriend’s “not good enough” for her.
“‘He’s not good enough for you, he’s not important, he’s not big enough for you,” Trump allegedly to Hayek before adding, “You have to go out with me.”
The interview took a humorous turn when Noah asked if Hayek ended up marrying that boyfriend.
When she replied “No,” Noah jokingly remarked, “So Donald Trump was right?” eliciting laughter from the audience.
This wasn’t the first time Hayek shared this story.
According to Buzzfeed, in 2016, while supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, she appeared on “El Show del Mandril,” a Spanish-language radio program in Los Angeles. There, she provided additional details about Trump’s vindictive response to her rejection.
According to Hayek’s radio interview, after she refused to date Trump “even if I didn’t have a boyfriend,” a story mysteriously appeared in the National Enquirer claiming that Trump wouldn’t date her because she was “too short.”
Hayek believed Trump planted the story himself, especially when he later called her pretending to be concerned about the article.
“Later, he called and left me a message. ‘Can you believe this? Who would say this? I don’t want people to think this about you,’” she recounted. “He thought that I would try to go out with him so people wouldn’t think that’s why he wouldn’t go out with me.”
In the same interview, Hayek criticized Trump’s immigration policies, particularly his threat to stop remittances from Mexican-Americans to their families in Mexico if the country refused to pay for his proposed border wall.
“That’s gravely serious,” she said. “People don’t know about this. Even if you’re here legally, a US citizen, you wouldn’t be able to send money.”When the 2017 clip was recently circulated online, social media users quickly connected Trump’s rejection by Hayek to his policies toward Mexico.
“So, she is the main reason for the wall,” one person commented. A second person quipped, “We found out why he hates Mexicans so much – little donnie hates rejection lol.”
Another commenter joked, “She coulda been the first lady,” referencing the alternate reality where Hayek might have dated Trump.
Instead, Hayek found lasting love with French billionaire François-Henri Pinault, whom she married in 2009. The couple share a daughter, Valentina Paloma.
Her husband is the CEO of luxury brands company Kering, which owns businesses such as Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, and Gucci. And often she is seen supporting him as he dresses major stars around the world.
Interestingly, BuzzFeed News reported in July 2016 that Trump had purchased a $120,000 luxury trip with Trump Foundation money at a 2008 charity auction that included a dinner with Hayek.
Tax records showed the donation came from his foundation rather than his personal funds, but Trump never went on the trip — perhaps still hurt from the rejection years earlier.
