Dame Emma Thompson has revealed that Donald Trump once asked her out to dinner — on the very day she got divorced.
The 66-year-old actress was speaking at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland when she shared the bizarre story. It happened while she was filming the 1998 political satire Primary Colors, loosely based on Bill Clinton’s rise to the White House.
At the time, Dame Emma had just finalised her divorce from actor Kenneth Branagh and was sitting in her trailer when the phone rang.
“It was Donald Trump,” she recalled. “He said: ‘Hello, this is Donald Trump.’ I thought it was a joke and asked: ‘How can I help you?’ Maybe he needed directions from someone.
“Then he said: ‘I’d love you to come and stay at one of my beautiful places. Maybe we could have dinner.’ I said: ‘Well, that’s very sweet. Thank you so much. I’ll get back to you.’”
Trump’s invitation came shortly after he separated from his second wife, Marla Maples, and expanded his New York property empire with several new landmark buildings.
By then, Dame Emma had already begun dating her Sense and Sensibility co-star Greg Wise, who she later married.
Reflecting on the approach, she said: “I realised that on that day, my divorce decree had come through. And I bet he’s got people looking for suitable people he could take out on his arm — you know, a nice divorcee. That’s what he was looking for.”
She added that Trump somehow managed to get the number for her trailer, calling it “stalking.”
A lifelong Labour supporter and environmental activist, Dame Emma joked that she “could have changed the course of American history” had she accepted the date.
During the Q&A, she also spoke about her surprise at the enduring success of the 2003 rom-com Love Actually, written by Richard Curtis.
“I mean, it’s honestly a constant source of astonishment to me that that film lasted — not that I don’t like the film, I like it very much — but it’s weird,” she said. “It touched a nerve because we get a heartbreak, especially women, and we have to hide it because we don’t want people to see it.”
