Put the blame on Gwen Stefani. Michael Moore claimed in a new interview that the singer was the reason why Donald Trump ran for president in the first place.
The 64-year-old filmmaker alleged to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on Wednesday, September 5, that Trump announced his candidacy after he discovered Stefani made more money as a coach on The Voice than he made as the host of The Apprentice. Moore claimed that the commander-in-chief wanted to show NBC, home to both reality shows, how popular he was with his Trump Tower campaign announcement in June 2015.
“He’d been talking about running for president since 1988, but he didn’t really want to be president. There’s no penthouse in the White House. And he doesn’t want to live in a black city,” Moore claimed. “He was trying to pit NBC against another network, but it just went off the rails.”
Moore also alleged that after NBC cut ties with Trump, 72, following his comment about Mexico sending “rapists” into the United States, the former reality star decided to actually run for president, given the attention he received from his supporters and the media.
A source close to the situation tells Us Weekly this is a “great headline heading into the Toronto Film Festival.” The insider thinks Moore made the claim to get a laugh and it was taken out of context from his movie Fahrenheit 11/9.
Stefani, 48, appeared as a coach on The Voice during seasons 7, 9 and 12, which aired from 2014 to 2017. Meanwhile, Trump hosted The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015.
The president and Stefani have yet to comment on Moore’s claims. He is currently fielding accusations about the state of his presidency from Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, Fear: Trump in the White House, and an anonymous New York Times op-ed written by one of his administration officials.
