Gwen Stefani is the reason Donald Trump ran for president. That is the wild claim that documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is making. He says that the tycoon entered the presidential race as a negotiating tactic to get more money out of NBC for appearing on his reality show The Apprentice. Ahead of the Toronto Film Festival premiere of his Trump election film Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael made the bold claim to The Hollywood Reporter on Sept. 5. He says that when Trump found out the network was going to pay Gwen Stefani $10 million to join The Voice, he was in the middle of negotiations with NBC as to whether he would appear on season 15 of his reality show. On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy, but the filmmaker claims was simply a stunt to get more money from NBC, because he didn’t really want to be president and definitely didn’t want to get paid less than Gwen.
“You hadn’t heard that before, have you?” he told THR about his audacious allegation. Michael claims that the former reality star’s Trump Tower presidential race announcement where the tycoon infamously made a grand entrance on an escalator was an attempt to prove to NBC that he was still wildly popular and thus worth more money in his new contract. “He’d been talking about running for president since 1988, but he didn’t really want to be president. There’s no penthouse in the White House. And he doesn’t want to live in a black city. He was trying to pit NBC against another network, but it just went off the rails,” the Oscar winner explains.
During his candidacy announcement, Trump made controversial statements about Mexicans by saying “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
After his accusation that Mexico was sending rapists to the U.S., NBC cut all ties with Trump. Sadly, his incendiary comments about immigrants struck a chord for some voters and he started drawing cheering crowds to his rallies. The media also began following him around more than any other candidate. Moore claims at that point Trump figured why not give it a shot and make a serious run for president. He ended up crushing the field in the Republican primary and beating Democrat Hillary Clinton to take the White House. Even though now some members of his senior staff have thought about invoking the 25th Amendment to get him ousted from office for being “amoral,” “anti-Democratic,” “impetuous” and “reckless.”