The late Queen Elizabeth II was known for her discretion and restraint when it came to expressing personal opinions, especially about political figures. But even Her Majesty had a breaking point when it came to a certain tangerine-tinted, loudmouth former U.S. President.
While Donald Trump never missed an opportunity to bloviate about his supposedly tremendous relationship with the queen, it appears his fawning flattery fell on deaf ears. According to a new biography by Craig Brown titled A Voyage Around the Queen, which is being serialized in The Daily Mail, the queen confided in an acquaintance about her less-than-favorable impression of Trump following one of his visits to the U.K. Brown, known as an insider in elite society, reveals that she was particularly irked by his wandering eye, as he constantly looked over her shoulder, presumably in search of someone “more interesting” or more important than the literal monarch of the United Kingdom.
Trump ultimately managed to elicit a rare moment of unvarnished candor from the monarch, who reportedly described the former U.S. president with a perfectly chosen four-letter word: “rude.”
This revelation aligns quite neatly with reports of Trump’s gauche behavior at Buckingham Palace. In 2018, the lumbering oaf reportedly kept the then 92-year-old Queen waiting for a sweltering 10 to 15 minutes, then had the audacity to walk in front of her while inspecting the guard of honor. If Trump had spent less time chasing his own tail and yapping for attention, he might have learned a thing or two about proper etiquette from the queen’s beloved corgis.
The orange man, of course, had a vastly different, and undoubtedly delusional, recollection of their meeting. He bragged about an “automatic chemistry” with the Queen, claiming that their conversation was so intense, he was oblivious to others in the room. One can only imagine the Queen’s inner monologue during this allegedly riveting exchange. (“Dear diary, today I had the misfortune of conversing with a giant Cheeto in a suit…”)
The queen’s shrewd observations didn’t end there. She allegedly couldn’t resist pondering what could possibly keep the glamorous former model now known as the First Lady shackled to a man widely regarded as a churlish philanderer. As it turns out, the queen’s intuition about the state of the Trump marriage may have been spot on. Rumor has it that Melania is already fantasizing about a “long-distance relationship,” should the nightmare scenario of his re-election come to pass.
Melania wouldn’t be the first Mrs. Trump to make a run for it. Trump’s second wife, Marla, pulled the rip cord after a scant six years, citing “cruel and inhumane treatment”— and that was before the era of 24/7 Twitter tantrums and “grab ’em by the p***y.” Marla was lucky compared to Trump’s first wife Ivana, who accused him of brutally raping her in a fit of rage back in the ’80s (though, she later recanted the allegation, probably to secure a divorce settlement). For decades, Trump has carefully crafted his public persona around his proximity to “beautiful women,” talking about them like they’re shiny trinkets to be collected and discarded at will. In 1991, Trump famously remarked that “it doesn’t really matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of a**”? Tells you everything you need to know about the malignant narcissist’s views on the opposite sex.
It’s a deeply ingrained character defect that has consistently eroded his credibility as a leader and a semi-sentient lifeform. He is, as comedian John Mulaney perfectly encapsulated, like “a horse loose in a hospital.” Ultimately, in branding Trump “rude,” Queen Elizabeth II spoke for all of us, delivering a fitting royal rebuke from one of the titans of the 20th century to one of the most titanic embarrassments of the 21st.