Stephanie Winston Wolkoff - The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady

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To Melania

G rab em by the pussy.

The sentence that reverberated around the world on October 7, 2016. The quote was an excerpt from a recording that became forever known as the Access Hollywood tape, published by the Washington Post and aired on NBC News, a month before the 2016 presidential election. It had been recorded eleven years earlier, in September 2005, on a bus taking Donald Trump to make a cameo on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives. Now infamously, Donald told TV host Billy Bush, Im automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. Its like a magnet. Just kiss. I dont even wait. And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab em by the pussy.

When the story broke about the tape I was deeply immersed in my oldest son, Zachs, health problems related to his life-threatening food allergies and other issues that required many doctors visits and therapies. My middle son, Tyler, was transferring to a new school, and my daughter, Alexi, was adjusting to hers. I was inching closer to the signing stage of two partnership deals Id personally and financially been invested in for years and believed would define the next decade of my life.

So the first I heard of the recording was from Zach, who called me from boarding school and asked, What do you think about this tape, Mom? Do you think Mr. Trump really said that? I hope Melania is okay. Tell her I say hi. I had no idea what he was referring to. Barron Trump was at the same school as my two younger children. Were all the students talking about it at school, too? Had Barron heard? At dinner that night with my kids, the tape was topic A. I still hadnt heard the entire recording myself or read the transcript.

At the time of the recording, Donald and Melania were practically newlyweds. She was a few months pregnant! Id never heard him speak that way in my life and it didnt exactly ring true. But his reputation for being a lothario preceded him, so of course it was possible. Wow, was I in for a shock when I heard the video with my own ears. Donald had actually said that?! About chasing TV host Nancy ODell and manhandling random women?

The words themselves on the Access Hollywood tape were offensive, whether or not Donald actually did what he described, but I wasnt completely shocked by them. For more than twenty years, I worked with some of the most influential and powerful male executives in entertainment, fashion, media, and politicsHarvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, and Russell Simmonswho have now fallen from their mighty tower.

I think the difference between the guy talk that I experienced and what Donald said, which really rubbed me the wrong way, was that he was bragging about violating women. I knew how men could talk when they thought women werent listening, but this was not something youd expect to hear from a presidential candidate.

Back in the early nineties, I worked in the music business for Ron Delsener, the legendary granddaddy of rock promoters, the boy from Queens who created the concept of massive outdoor concerts in Central Park. Ron had booked all the greats all over the worldthe Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Depeche Mode, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, you name it! He talked faster than I did, out of both sides of his mouth, and said things like, Stephanie, get over here and lets see what you can do with those six-feet-long legs. I was twenty-four at the time. His remarks, said with a twinkle of mischief, were right to my face, not hidden or just with the guys. It was a different era, so I took them in strideon my six-feet-long legs. (In fact, when I agreed to produce the 58th Presidential Inauguration for our forty-fifth president, I called Ron to see if hed help me find some musical acts. He made himself available the very next day.) Ron is a bit crass, but he is all heart.

Donald, on the other hand, boasted with the boys on the bus, and then, as soon as a woman came on the scene, they immediately shut up. They knew that what they were saying was wrong. I felt sick trying to explain to my kids why Donald, not only the Republican nominee for president but my friends husband, a man theyd known their whole lives, had bragged about grabbing womens private parts without their consent.

I was concerned for Melania and worried about Barron, too. But, then again, she had responded to my concern many times over the years with, Dont be, I know who I married. Very matter-of-factly, she had always stipulated, Barron is my first priority and he is strong. I always interpreted that as her resigning herself to an unconventional marriage or household and having no expectations of Donald as a faithful husband or doting father. He was a narcissist to the core, but his admitting to the entire world that his fame gave him superpowers to violate women had to have affected her. I would have been horrified if my husband talked about randomly assaulting womenand immediately out the door to a divorce lawyers office. But Melanias basic instinct and reaction were not those of a so-called normal woman with so-called normal feelings about her far-from-normal marriage. I honestly had no idea how she was handling it.

Out of concern (and some curiosity), I texted her on October 9, Are you okay??

The next day, she replied, Hi, love. I canceled interview tomorrow. If you have time for lunch?

I figured out shed planned on doing press about the recording but had put it off. (She eventually did talk to Anderson Cooper the following week in a stiff, toeing-the-line interview.) I was a bit surprised that, in the epic shitstorm the Trump family was in, shed have time for lunch. But, then again, Melania loved to lunch. Her toneLets do the Mark. Ill make a reservation for tomorrow. I need to leave at 2:30 p.m. to pick Barron up from school at 3:00 p.m. Can you do 12:15? I was relieved. I had yet to see Melania freak out about anything. But if she were ever going to, wouldnt it be over this?

We had our lunch routine. We alternated between three restaurants, wrapped up in under three hours, and took turns paying the bill. When privacy was the prerequisite, our usual spot was the Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges, inside the posh luxury hotel of the same name on Manhattans exclusive Upper East Side. I texted that I was running late. She texted back that she was there already, but not to rush.

When I finally arrived, I hurried through the sparkly hotel entrance and the bar toward our regular table. I didnt notice any Secret Service men or women, but I knew they had to be there. Our table was off to the side against the wall, as private as you could get in this busy restaurant. I wish Id been on time, so I could have seen the reaction of the other lunch-goers when the most talked-about woman in the world arrived in one of her impeccable outfits with her signature look of a jacket draped across her shoulders and a neat-as-always coiffure. New Yorkers dont often stare at celebrities, and definitely not while dining at the A-list-celeb enclave the Mark, which hosted many of them. But Melania must have made heads swivel that day.