A Brief Recap of Donald Trump’s Own Alleged Plastic Surgery
On Thursday morning, the president of the United States, the commander in chief of the armed forces, the guy who signs executive orders, got mad at a news anchor. In retaliation, he claimed she got plastic surgery:
Trump was lashing out at Mika Brzezinski, host of Morning Joe and a person with whom he was once friendly. Though Trump says he doesn’t watch the program anymore, the tweets came after Brzezinski said on the show, “Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a mag about himself, lying every day and destroying the country” (she’s referring to the fake Time magazine cover that hangs in several of his golf clubs). It’s a crude statement that’s earned outrage even from members of the party Trump theoretically leads, but also a typical response from a public figure who has a rocky history of handling embarrassment.
While the unprecedented attack on a news figure by the president of the United States brought up all manner of reasons to slap one’s forehead, let us take this chance to focus in on a particular: this plastic surgery thing. Plastic surgery is a fairly normalized practice, especially in Los Angeles and New York, especially among the moneyed elite of those cities. And Donald Trump is a moneyed elite from such a coastal province, one who’s demonstrated a fascination with the more superficial qualities throughout his life. Is it possible that he himself has gone under the knife, making his Thursday tweets both indefensible and hypocritical? Ivana Trump’s divorce deposition, which was recounted in The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump by author Harry Hurt III may have some answers.
In 1990, Ivana Trump said under oath that her husband flew into a fit of rage due to the pain and displeasure with a scalp reduction surgery, performed in 1989. Also known as alopecia reduction, the surgery is intended to correct balding, and involves cutting the bald spot out and sewing the remaining skin back together. The tightened scalp can cause headaches and swelling. The man who allegedly performed the surgery was Ivana’s own doctor, Dr. Steven Hoefflin. He’s most famous for extending his services to Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Rivers, among other stars. Hoefflin also performed liposuction on the chin and waist of our now president, according to Ivana’s deposition. (She rescinded part of the deposition, which included rape allegations, in a 2015 statement).
So not only did Trump himself possibly once have plastic surgery, but his Trump Taj Mahal once offered $25,000 worth of plastic surgery to a casino winner. At this point it’s not odd that Trump would act hypocritically on any subject, especially appearance, especially women’s appearance (see his comments on Carly Fiorina, Megyn Kelly, Arianna Huffington, Rosie O’Donnell, Heidi Klum, Alicia Machado, and Ted Cruz’s wife). But you do have to wonder why he would offer up a reason to drudge up this unsavory association, one that he and his lawyers have gone to great lengths to strike down. In the Lost Tycoon, Trump denied both the incident and the plastic surgery, going out of his way to swipe at Hunt in the process. “It’s obviously false,” Trump also said in 1993, according the Daily Beast, and originally reported by Newsday. “It’s incorrect and done by a guy without much talent … [Hunt] is a guy that is an unattractive guy who is a vindictive and jealous person.”
