Christmas has passed, but Donald Trump is keeping his festive mood alive by beefing with the director of a movie he appeared in for seven seconds more than 30 years ago.
The former president blasted out a Truth Social missive on Wednesday attacking Chris Columbus, who directed the Christmas classics “Home Alone” (1990) and “Home Alone 2” (1992).
Trump made a brief appearance in the sequel during a scene at New York City’s Plaza Hotel, which he owned at the time.
In an interview with Business Insider in 2020, Columbus said that Trump would only allow the film to be shot at the hotel if he could appear in it, and that the future president essentially bullied his way into the movie.
That tidbit was recirculated online this week, and evidently caught Trump’s eye.
“30 years ago (how time flies!), Director Chris Columbus, and others, were begging me to make a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “They rented the Plaza Hotel in New York, which I owned at the time. I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent. I agreed, and the rest is history!”
“That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time,” he went on. “People call me whenever it is aired.”
He claimed that Columbus’ version of events is false.
“If they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there, for over 30 years?” Trump wrote. “Because I was, and still am, great for the movie, that’s why!”
In the 2020 interview, Columbus said that in order to shoot the scene at the Manhattan hotel, they approached the venue and offered to pay a fee.
“Trump said OK,” Columbus recalled. “We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.’ So we agreed to put him in the movie, and when we screened it for the first time the oddest thing happened: People cheered when Trump showed up on-screen.”
“So I said to my editor, ‘Leave him in the movie. It’s a moment for the audience,’” Columbus said. “But he did bully his way into the movie.”
Trump has many film and TV cameos to his name, including appearances in “Sex and the City” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” that were shot years before he officially got into politics.
In 2017, Matt Damon told The Hollywood Reporter a Trump story that dovetails with Columbus’ anecdote.
“The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write him in a part,” Damon said. “You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in ‘Home Alone 2’ they left it in.”
Trump also addressed the Christmas cameo in 2019, after it did not appear in a Canadian broadcast. (The network said it had cut the scene for time back in 2014, long before Trump was president.)
“The movie will never be the same! (just kidding),” Trump tweeted at the time.
His son Donald Jr. had a more dramatic reaction, calling the omission “absolutely pathetic.”
You can see the cameo, and Trump’s single line of dialogue, below: