Donald Trump breaks silence over claims he sexually assaulted Ivana

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has slammed the creators of The Apprentice biopic after it resurfaces claims he violently sexually assaulted his ex-wife Ivana. 

The film, which featured Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Republican operative Roy Cohn, hosts a stomach-churning scene in which Trump throws Ivana, his first wife, to the floor and sexually assaults her as she screams for him to stop. 

While the scene has already caused controversy, Trump today broke his silence over the film, which was released in the US on Friday, claiming that he and his ex-wife, who passed away in 2022, had a 'great relationship... until the day she died.'

He wrote on Truth Social: 'A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully "bomb." 

'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.'

The scene in The Apprentice was taken from a court deposition that Ivana gave during her 1990 divorce from Trump, which she later recanted in 2015 during his first presidential campaign. 

According to Harry Hurt III, a journalist who covered the case, said that Trump was furious that a 'scalp reduction' he had asked for to eliminate a bald spot was painful. 

Furious at Ivana for recommending the surgeon, in Hurt's telling, Trump yanked out a handful of his wife's hair and began attacking her sexually. 

The following morning, he menacingly asked her: 'Does it hurt?' 

According to the film's writer Gabriel Sherman, 'the scene she described in the divorce papers was actually far more graphic and brutal than the one we dramatized in the film.'

Both Trump and the film's funder Dan Snyder, a close billionaire friend of the Republican nominee, unsuccessfully filed cease-and-desist letters to get the film canned. 

Snyder funded the film under the expectation that it would depict Trump positively.  

But the pair may not need to worry about anyone even seeing the film, given the disappointing box office performance on its opening weekend. 

It earned just $1.58 million despite a $16 million production budget and a release in 1,750 theaters. 

Its opening day results were particularly underwhelming, with the film grossing around $150,000 on Thursday.

Despite these challenges, the movie, featuring Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Republican operative Roy Cohn, has received mostly positive reviews.

Meanwhile, production company Briarcliff Entertainment is reportedly aiming to position the film for awards consideration.

In a largely positive review, The New York Times called the film 'gleefully vulgar' and said there was a 'startling' resemblance between leads Sebastian and Jeremy and the real-life men they portray.

Reviewer Manohla Dargis wrote: 'Each actor has clearly made an attentive study of his character's real-life counterpart, his mannerisms, how he moves and especially his voice.'

She added: 'The movie encourages you to laugh at his extremes, his vanity and braggadocio, the one thing that the filmmakers don't prepare you for, even if you should know better, is the magnitude of the American tragedy rapidly unfolding before you.'