Celebs Who Surprisingly Showed Up To Melania & Donald Trump's Wedding

Donald Trump and Melania Trump's 2005 wedding was a lavish affair attended by a who's who of celebs. When the couple created their guest list, it was as if they created categories for fashion, sports, politics, and the entertainment industry to ensure each was well represented.

The Trumps' guests watched the couple tie the knot at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach. According to the Palm Beach Daily News, some stars on the couple's wish list of attendees weren't able to make it, including Bruce Willis and Oprah Winfrey. Among the random assortment of luminaries who did show up was Lakers legend Shaquille O'Neal. The NBA star told the Herald Tribune he had a blast and joked that he had gotten Donald a Phantom Rolls-Royce as a wedding gift. "It'll be parked at my house when he wants to use it," he said. Donald is fixated on his son Barron Trump's height, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that he brought up Shaq's 7-foot-2 frame at the reception. Of what it's like being in the basketball icon's orbit, Donald said, "It felt like I was in an eclipse," per the New York Post.

In 2020, O'Neal participated in a campaign event for Donald's political rival, Joe Biden, which the real estate tycoon would surely consider a betrayal of whatever relationship he had with O'Neal. So much has happened since Donald's nuptials, and now it's hard to imagine O'Neal and several of Donald's other wedding guests making the cut if he were to get married again.

Donald Trump has taken some serious digs at Hillary Clinton over the years, even calling for her to be imprisoned. Donald's future political foe was given prime placement at his wedding — Hillary witnessed the historical event from the front pew. Bill Clinton was unable to make it to the church but did join his wife at the reception, where he chatted with other guests about a topic close to Donald's heart: golf.

Hillary was serving as a New York Senator at the time, and Donald had actually donated to her campaign. But in her book "Something Lost, Something Gained," Hillary says that she and Melania Trump hadn't met before the wedding, so it seems that she and Donald weren't exactly besties. She also writes, "I went out of curiosity. I was going to be in Florida anyway and thought it would be entertaining to see what a Donald Trump wedding was like." Donald, however, claimed that Hillary and Bill showed up for a different reason. "I demanded that they be there — they had no choice," he told Politico Magazine. His claim was that Hillary couldn't turn him down because of his past campaign donations to her, and he tried to spin them in his favor by painting them as examples of a shady pay-to-play deal.

While Donald donated to Hillary multiple times, he only wrote one of those checks before his wedding. It was for a measly $1,000, which is chump change when you're as wealthy as the Clintons are.

Katie Couric joined the chorus of celebrities who have voiced their disapproval of Donald Trump after witnessing how he runs the country. In a 2020 essay for Time, she expressed support for Joe Biden and summed up Trump's job performance by writing, "Donald Trump didn't grow bigger in the job. He grew smaller." The following year, she appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" and took aim at Trump's supporters. "The question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump," she said (via Page Six).

Those people would have loved to have been in Couric's shoes when she received her Tiffany & Co. invitation to Trump's wedding. Guests were forbidden from taking photos or videos, but she brought a purse with a hidden camera built into it. On her podcast, "Katie Couric: Knows A Thing Or Two," she and fellow wedding invitee Kelly Ripa talked about the sneaky recording device. Ripa recalled Couric tossing it to her at one point so she could film Shaquille O'Neal's entrance. Of why she brought the accessory, Couric said, "I just thought it was so funny. ... I guess I was bored or something." She added, "I think it got confiscated."

A Trump spokesperson issued a statement about the purse camera to the Palm Beach Post in 2005. Their version of events was that Donald had told Couric she could film, with the plan being to use her footage for a television special. However, he hadn't consulted with Melania Trump first, and she is the one who reportedly caught Couric filming. 

A few months after Heidi Klum attended Donald Trump and Melania Trump's wedding, Donald appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" and revealed that he was no longer crushing on Klum. "I looked at her the other day, and it's off. There's no question," he said (via Contact Music). A decade later, Donald randomly dissed Klum again in an interview with The New York Times. "Sadly, she's no longer a 10," he said.

Klum had fun with her response to Donald on X, formerly known as Twitter. In the silly video that she shared, she's happily posing for the camera with a piece of paper taped on her chest that has the number 10 written on it. Someone wearing a Trump mask approaches her and snatches it away, revealing that she's been downgraded to a 9.99.

#TrumpHasSpoken #sadly #9.99 #NoLongerA10 #IHadAGoodRun #donaldtrump #HeidiTrumpsTrump #BeautyIsInTheEyeOfTheBeheld pic.twitter.com/dwDmEXNKMR

— Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) August 17, 2015

When Trump keeps attacking the same person, it's usually because he feels that he's been slighted by them in some way — Trump's beef with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is an example. But on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Klum said she had no clue what Donald's problem with her was — there was no story about her turning him down for a date or an appearance on "The Celebrity Apprentice." The 2016 election hadn't yet taken place, and Klum revealed that Donald had lost one potential vote when she said, "All I can say is, may the best woman win."

In a 2019 Rolling Stone interview, Billy Joel explained that he's not outspoken about politics like many celebs are because some fans find this off-putting. However, he did say of Donald Trump, "I'm not a big fan of his." He also shared that Trump's initial comments about neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, had inspired him to wear a yellow Star of David during one of his concerts. "I was pissed off. It's bulls**t. There's no fine Nazis. ... This president missed the boat. He had a great chance to say something meaningful and he blew it," said Joel.

While Joel showed up at Trump's wedding, he and "The Apprentice" host were not close pals at the time. "I don't even know Trump," he told Vulture in 2018. He said it was his then-wife, Katie Lee, who really wanted to attend the event. "I thought it would be an interesting freak show," he added.

The "Piano Man" singer wasn't sure why he made the guest list, but it probably made Trump feel like a big shot to have him there. Joel took full advantage of the free booze, and his memory of the evening was hazy. "I'm told I sang — probably made an a** of myself," he told the Los Angeles Times. People reported that the singer entertained everyone at the reception by retooling the lyrics of his song "The Lady is a Tramp" for the occasion, and maybe this was what Trump was angling for all along — free entertainment.

A photo of Melania Trump in her wedding dress was featured on the cover of Vogue, so the former model naturally invited the magazine's editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, to watch the satin Dior confection glide down the aisle in person. But during her tenure as first lady, Melania was not asked to pose for another cover, a privilege that Wintour extended to both Melania's predecessor and successor, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden. Melania reacted to the snub during an appearance on "Fox & Friends" in 2022. "They're biased, and they have likes and dislikes, and it's so obvious," she said. 

Melania wasn't wrong — Wintour hasn't exactly tried to hide her disdain for the Trumps. On "The Late Late Show," she revealed that Donald Trump will never receive another invitation to the prestigious Met Gala from her. That had to sting, seeing as how Donald proposed to Melania on the evening of the star-studded soiree, which Wintour co-chairs, in 2004.

In 2020, Wintour also used the pages of Vogue to endorse Joe Biden and issue a scathing critique of Donald Trump. "I, like so many of us, have been appalled by how he has responded to the pandemic," she wrote. She further decried Trump as a narcissist and liar. So, the inspiration for "The Devil Wears Prada" clearly can't bear MAGA.