Actor Louise Linton declared her love for ‘Edinburgh team Rangers’ and claimed she would be ‘beaten up’ by fans of the Glasgow club if she decided to support Celtic on her return to Scotland in a bizarre series of gaffes on an American podcast.
The capital-born star of several B-list films made the astonishing claim among a series of factual inaccuracies about her home city and country during an appearance on Can You Survive This? while discussing her life and career.
Linton, 41, who is married to Donald Trump’s former US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, also stated that “a lot of Americans don’t realise Great Britain is made up of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland” while discussing her political views.
She added that Nicola Sturgeon was “taking Scotland in a socialist direction” and spoke of her affection for Boris Johnson because he “has crazy hair”.
However, the topic of the beautiful game appeared to seriously confuse the former CSI: NY and Cold Case star - who grew up a stone’s throw from Hearts’ Tynecastle Stadium in Murrayfield and was educated at the city’s Fettes College.
When asked about her preference, Linton, whose family owns the historic Melville Castle in Midlothian, omitted the mention of the Jambos and city rivals Hibernian to focus on Glasgow’s Old Firm - with a liberal attitude to the geography of the historic clash.
“I grew up in Edinburgh and Rangers is an Edinburgh team,” she told host Clint Emerson.
“Celtic is a Glasgow team. It is a very long historical rivalry. If I picked the Celtics next time I go home to Edinburgh I would get beaten up by my own fans.”
Rangers’ Ibrox Stadium is located around 50 miles from Edinburgh City Centre.
Linton, who has sparked a series of controversies in the US over claims she and her husband, 59, had requested the use of a US government jet to go on their honeymoon trip to Scotland, went on to say she was forced to rely on a map when taking Mnuchin on a tour of her home city, adding she was ‘unable to point out any monuments’.
She also took aim at American disregard for the makeup of Great Britain, stating that a “common misunderstanding” failed to realise that “Great Britain is Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.”
Great Britain is actually made up of Scotland, England and Wales.
Linton went on to confirm she voted ‘No’ in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, arguing that the union was formed “700 years ago under a Scottish king”.
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The Act of Union was signed in 1707, while the union of the crowns - in which James VI of Scotland and I of England took the throne of both - happened in 1603.
Linton was appearing on the podcast to promote her film ‘Me, You, Madness’ which she wrote, directed and starred in alongside White Gold’s Ed Westwick.
The film stars Linton as a ‘bisexual cannibal serial killer who keeps the bodies of dead politicians in her freezer’.
The Times pointed out the production - which was not released in cinemas - had been “pilloried” by critics, with one Hollywood Reporter reviewer writing “to call this a vanity project is an insult to vanity projects”.
Linton has been linked to a series of failed property developments in the Capital via the Rockshiel Trust, of which she is a beneficiary, with a third application for a number of luxury homes in the Murrayfield area currently being considered by City of Edinburgh Council planning chiefs after two previous bids were rejected.
