Donald Trump slams The Apprentice movie as “cheap & defamatory” in online rant

With the US election fast approaching, it seems an apt time for The Apprentice movie, a sordid biopic that tells the story of Donald Trump’s rise through America’s ranks in the ’70s and ’80s.

Starring Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as his mentor Roy Cohn, The Apprentice doesn’t shy away from the hard-to-swallow details of the ex-President’s rise to fame and fortune.

Naturally, the sensationalized tell-all nature of the new movie attracted some backlash from the real-life mogul, with Trump threatening to sue back in May. His attorneys filed a cease and desist order, but The Apprentice was still released on October 11.

On October 14, Trump posted to his social media site Truth Social (described as a “Twitter clone” created after he was banned from the platform in 2021), dubbing The Apprentice as a “fake and classless” movie, and openly wishing that the film would “bomb.”

He wrote: “It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ My former wife, Ivana, was a kind and wonderful person, and I had a great relationship with her until the day she died.

“The writer of this pile of garbage, Gabe Sherman, a lowlife and talentless hack, who has long been widely discredited, knew that, but chose to ignore it.

“So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us. MAGA2024!”

One of the most controversial scenes in The Apprentice depicts Trump sexually assaulting his then-wife Ivana, which was described by her in real-life depositions. She would later say those allegations were “totally without merit” after being made during a period of tension.

The Apprentice is out in theaters now. For more, take a look at our guide to all the best movies of 2024.