Attorneys for ex-president Donald Trump have sent a cease and desist letter to the producers behind the upcoming biopic The Apprentice to block the film's release, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The Apprentice, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to an eight-minute standing ovation this week, stars Sebastian Stan as a young Trump working in real estate in the 1970s and '80s and Jeremy Strong as New York City prosecutor Roy Cohn.
The movie reportedly contains a scene where Trump rapes his ex-wife Ivana Trump, played by Maria Bakalova. Ivana, who died in 2022, accused Trump of raping her in a 1989 divorce deposition but later refuted the claim. "The story is totally without merit," she said in 2015. "Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of."
Trump's camp wasn't happy with his depiction in the film and threatened legal action. "We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said following the premiere earlier this week.
"This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung continued. "This 'film' is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn't even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire."
Dan Snyder, the billionaire ex-owner of the Washington Commanders and longtime Trump associate who invested in the project under the mistaken impression that it would portray him in a positive light, was also unhappy and reportedly demanded (unsuccessfully) that the rape scene be cut.
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"The film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president," the producers of the film said in a statement to Variety regarding the cease and desist letter. "We want everyone to see it and then decide."
Ali Abbasi, the Iranian-Danish filmmaker who directed The Apprentice, responded to Trump's legal threats at a press conference in Cannes. "Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don't talk about his success rate though, you know?" he said.
"I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie that he would dislike,” the director added. "I don’t necessarily think he would like it. I think that he would be surprised. I would offer to go and meet him wherever he wants and then talk about the context of the movie, have a screening, and have a chat afterward. If that’s interesting for any one of the Trump campaign people here."