The Gossip That Put Donald Trump on a Tabloid Cover

A picture of Donald Trump, looking gleeful, with the headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had” splashed across the front page of the New York Post looked, at first glance, like a spoof. The President of the United States had spent his life grabbing headlines for all sorts of reasons, but this one took the prize. Five words nobody could have imagined making it onto the front page of a tabloid.The quote was attributed to his lover at the time, and eventual second wife, Marla Maples. It referred to Trump’s sexual prowess and, awkwardly, he was still married to his first wife, Ivana Trump, when the story broke.It quickly became one of the most infamous quotes of the era, although Marla has always denied she ever said it.Jill Brooke, a former New York Post journalist,

later wrote about the incident for The Hollywood Reporter. She described a heated phone call between Trump and Post editor Jerry Nachman. This was the peak of Trump and Ivana’s divorce, a moment when every scrap of gossip was being aggressively covered by the Post and the Daily News. Around the same time, the Daily News ran a front-page story featuring Ivana, fuelled by gossip columnist Liz Smith. Landing a Liz Smith column was a cultural win, and Ivana emerged as the wronged woman who had lost her husband to another woman, earning public sympathy in the process.

The New York Times had previously reported that Trump once said he would fire her just to buy the Daily News.Trump, furious, was melting down on the phone to Nachman, demanding a front-page story. The editor replied that you cannot demand a front page.Brooke recalled the exchange. “What gets a front-page story?” Trump asked. The veteran newsman, Nachman, considered it. “It’s usually murder, money or sex.” Trump fired back: “Marla says with me it’s the best sex she’s ever had.” Nachman’s face lit up like a firecracker. “That’s great!” he said. “But you know I need corroboration.”Trump was not backing down. Brooke wrote that he then shouted into the background, “Didn’t you say it’s the best sex you ever had with me?” From a distance, a faint voice replied, “Yes, Donald.” Only years later did it emerge that Trump sometimes impersonated voices to reporters. “I still can’t be sure whether the voice in the room was really hers,” Brooke wrote.The rest is history. That is how Donald Trump landed the front page of the New York Post on February 16, 1990.