Weird Things About Donald Trump Everyone Ignores

While many Americans who didn't vote for Donald Trump were ready to totally tune politics out after his 2024 election victory, he quickly started escalating the weirdness to a level that was impossible to ignore. Based on his long history of odd antics, perhaps nobody should have been surprised by the deluge of bizarre developments.

Then again, it's still hard to imagine anyone predicting Donald allowing meme lord Elon Musk to become an unofficial Trump family member and asking him to spearhead an official task force named after the SpaceX founder's favorite meme coin: DOGE. But did anybody bat an eyelash when Donald released a cologne line inspired by his assassination attempt called Fight, Fight, Fight? Except, of course, for Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose tendency to go overboard with the eye makeup makes profuse eyelash batting unavoidable.

Things took a surreal turn when "The Apprentice" host launched his political career, most forgetting many of his absurd stunts, peculiar quirks, and strange fixations — such as when Donald got teed off at Kristen Stewart and launched a tweet tirade against her. Well, be prepared to revisit more of the ludicrousness.

Before he mastered the art of telling voters what they wanted to hear, Donald Trump played the press like a gold-plated fiddle. As The Washington Post reported, he would sometimes pose as his own spokesperson when speaking to the media, and one of the false monikers he used was "John Barron." Adding yet another bizarre layer to this tidbit of Trumpian lore is that Donald chose to name his youngest son Barron Trump.

According to People, Donald also adopted the pseudonym "John Miller" when trying to pass himself off as his own publicist. This was the name he reportedly used to feed the magazine a story about Madonna and Kim Basinger being romantically interested in him. He also claimed he was dating model Carla Bruni, who would later become France's first lady. "Important, beautiful women call him all the time," Donald-as-Miller boasted to the publication in 1991. Bruni responded to the relationship claim by telling the Daily Mail, "Trump is obviously a lunatic" (via The Spokesman-Review).

Donald was apparently desperate to construct a mythical image of himself as a ladies' man who attracted A-listers. According to Salma Hayek, he also used the tabloids to retaliate against women who spurned him; she claimed he had the National Enquirer published a fabricated story about her when she refused to date him. "It said that he wouldn't go out with me because I was too short," she recalled on "El Show del Mandril" (via BuzzFeed News).

The man with the golden penthouse can't seem to get enough of the Golden Arches. According to Donald Trump, McDonald's fries might even be the secret to his hair; he tweeted that they're what keeps that straw-colored thatch clinging to his scalp. It's also reportedly not easy to get Trump to make healthy food choices. Ronny Jackson was Trump's physician during his first presidential term, and he told The New York Times he resorted to a trick commonly used on toddlers to get Trump to eat his veggies, recalling, "We were putting cauliflower into the mashed potatoes."

Despite being an unapologetic fan of fast food, including a huge McDonald's order loaded with calories, Donald admitted to making some effort to decrease his caloric intake — albeit with a unique approach. In a since-deleted 2011 YouTube video, he explained that he eats pizza with a knife and fork so he can scrape the toppings off. "I like not to eat the crust so that we keep the weight down at least as good as possible," he said (via Politico). His love of Diet Coke is also well-documented, even though he once tweeted, "I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke."

Trump's views on exercise are equally eccentric. In the biography "Trump Revealed," journalists Mike Kranisch and Marc Fisher write, "Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted." He won't even walk from hole to hole on the golf course, telling Reuters, "I don't want to spend the time."

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump received the rock star treatment from his supporters by plowing through some of his greatest hits. Hannibal Lecter made frequent appearances in his rambling stump speeches, leaving many stumped as to why he was so obsessed with the fictional cannibal. Then there were wind turbines, which he cast as villains in some of his tall tales. But in Trump's world, there may be no greater evil than a toilet that doesn't do its job on the first flush.

In 2019, Trump complained about his nemesis during a meeting with business owners at the White House. "People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times," he said, per CNN. Days later, he clarified that he personally had never engaged in such a battle to empty the bowl. "Not me. Of course, not me. But you," he told a campaign rally crowd.

However, it's possible that the potty mouth was experiencing some flush frustration. In her book "Confidence Man," journalist Maggie Haberman writes that someone had a habit of clogging up White House commodes with torn-up documents, and Trump was the top suspect. Perhaps concern that it couldn't handle his document load is why Trump didn't accept the Guggenheim's offer to loan him a gold toilet sculpture in lieu of the Van Gogh painting he asked to borrow for the White House.

Lolling tongues and thumping tails bring smiles to the faces of many Americans, but Donald Trump loves to use his country's most popular pet as an insult. While weighing in on Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's relationship, he once tweeted, "She cheated on him like a dog." When explaining why he had attacked Arianna Huffington's appearance, he wrote, "Because she is a dog who wrongfully comments on me." He also deems many of his political foes "dogs," so he clearly has some animosity toward the animals. In fact, he was the first president in over 100 years to not have a pet pooch while living in the White House.

In 2017, Donald's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, revealed on "Mornings with Maria" that she was trying to convince him to adopt a canine companion. "I am working on it as hard as I can," she said, adding that she believed Donald was going to take her advice. However, this never happened. At a 2019 campaign rally, he explained why. "How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn ... I don't know. Feels a little phony," he said, per ABC News.

Donald's inability to even pretend that he likes dogs goes way back. In her book "Raising Trump," his late first wife, Ivana Trump, recalls Donald saying that her poodle Chappy couldn't move into Trump Tower when they got married. However, she told him, "It's me and Chappy or no one!"

It's not unusual to see politicians sporting Levi's at campaign stops in an obvious bid to seem more relatable to voters — denim is the fabric equivalent of eating a corn dog at a county fair. However, during the near decade he spent campaigning for president, Americans didn't see Donald Trump wearing jeans. While he was willing to cosplay as a garbage man or an overdressed McDonald's employee, he never played cowboy by sporting a pair of bootcut Wranglers and a shiny belt buckle.

Perhaps a distaste for denim should be expected from a man who once had a butler. However, Trump Tower staffer Anthony Senecal told the Independent Journal Review that there were once occasions when his employer would bust out the blue jeans. "He had one pair of jeans he used to wear out to ski out West. When the skiing stopped, the jeans disappeared," Senecal revealed. 

Trump's unconventional ski attire also made some appearances far from the slopes. When he was included on one of People's worst-dressed lists, the magazine featured a 1996 photo of the real estate tycoon wearing jeans on the beach. Maybe the real reason Donald ditched denim is that he was mocked for rocking it in the wrong places.

Donald Trump accidentally confirmed he's jealous of Barron Trump's height, which is one example of the president being weirdly competitive with his kids. Unfortunately for Donald, putting lifts in his shoes will never help him win there. However, Donald did discover that there was something he could beat his kids at when they were much younger.

In a 2004 New York Magazine profile, Eric Trump recalled being 10 years old when Donald tried to shove him over during a father-son ski race. Ivanka shared a similar anecdote, recalling, "I remember skiing with him and we were racing. I was ahead, and he reached his ski pole out and pulled me back."

In "Raising Trump," Ivana Trump explains why Donald was reluctant to name Donald Trump Jr. after himself. "What if he's a loser?" she recalls him saying. Apparently, Donald didn't want his kids to be winners, either — if he was their competition. Speaking of which, Donald Jr. offered some intriguing insight into his father's competitive psyche while explaining why Donald doesn't hunt for sport like his two oldest sons. "To try something new and to be an amateur again, that doesn't appeal to his competitive side," he told The New Yorker. "He knows what he's good at, and he likes to win."

Stormy Daniels opened up about her alleged affair with Donald Trump years before the public learned about it. While her explosive interview with InTouch took place in 2011, it remained unpublished until 2018. The circumstances surrounding the interview played a pivotal role in Donald's 34 felony charges.

After sharing the squicky details of her single alleged sexual encounter with Donald, Daniels reveals later in the interview that she paid him a visit again. On that occasion, he was engrossed in a "Shark Week" special. This is how Daniels learned that he has a somewhat irrational fear of sharks, considering that he spends zero time in their domain. She recalls, "He was like, 'I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die.'"

While Donald denied cheating on Melania Trump with Daniels, he couldn't dispute the shark claim. After an X user complained about his casinos serving shark fin soup, he tweeted, "Sorry folks, I'm just not a fan of sharks – and don't worry, they will be around long after we are gone." He followed this up with a post reading, "Sharks are last on my list — other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!" He fired off these tweets two years after Daniels' interview, so she definitely didn't use them to invent the shark detail included in her story.

In 2007, Ivanka Trump told Marie Claire it was "a nightmare" when Donald Trump infamously said that the two of them could be a couple — if only they weren't related. While he might believe that no man would make a better match for Ivanka than himself, there is at least one person Donald views as a worthy son-in-law. According to several sources who spoke to The New York Times, they overheard Donald lamenting that Ivanka could have married Tom Brady instead of Jared Kushner. And when Ivanka was 15 years old, Donald boasted to The New York Times, ”She has these rockers calling her up and asking for dates. Top names." The unnamed musicians, however, did not pass muster with the business mogul.

According to former Trump family lawyer Michael Cohen, Donald also tried meddling in his son Eric Trump's love life. On the "Political Beatdown" podcast, Cohen said that Donald used to strongly dislike Lara Trump. He added that Donald wanted Eric to wed an unnamed Trump Organization employee instead.

In 2019, The Atlantic reported that Donald also disapproved of Donald Trump Jr.'s relationship with Kimberly Guilfoyle, possibly because he found his son's former fiancée attractive. Soon after Donald Jr. unceremoniously dumped the ex-Fox News host in favor of his new squeeze, Bettina Anderson, Donald did his son a solid by announcing that he was shipping Guilfoyle off to Greece for an ambassadorship. Then there's Barron Trump. Upon being asked if Barron is "good with the ladies" on the "PBD Podcast," Donald didn't do the teen a solid. "I'm not sure he's there yet," he said instead.

Donald Trump's hair sends even the most seasoned humorists scrambling for their thesauruses — it's just so hard to come up with creative ways to describe the mercilessly mocked mop stuffed underneath his MAGA cap. Because Trump's hair has been used as a punchline so often, you might think he would avoid poking fun at other people's hairstyles. But this is Trump we're talking about.

In 2001, gossip columnist A.J. Benza had a heated exchange with Donald Trump on "The Howard Stern Show." Benza was livid because he believed Trump had pursued a relationship with his ex, Kara Young, while Benza was still dating her. Trump needled his rival by saying, "She told me you were losing your hair, A.J., and you've done the transplant" (via the New York Post). Years later, the politician noticed the hair of a protester at a 2018 rally and said, "Was that a man or a woman? Because he needs a haircut more than I do" (via the Washington Examiner). But let's be real: He was just jealous of the protester's long, lustrous locks. This was probably also the case when he tried to go there with Hillary Clinton's hair. In a 2015 appearance on "The Mark Levin Show," he agreed with the titular host that Clinton was wearing a wig and added, "Her hair became massive."

Yet, one of Trump's weirdest hair moments came in 2024 at Trump International Golf Club when he spotted a little girl's springy curls. "Can I buy your hair? I'll pay you millions for that," he said to her, per The Independent.

When it comes to Donald Trump's movie career, he might be best remembered for his work in a beloved — but not quite as beloved as the original — sequel to a holiday classic. The director of "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," Chris Columbus, told Business Insider that he wanted to use the Trump-owned Plaza Hotel as a filming location, which Trump would only allow in exchange for a cameo. "He did bully his way into the movie," said the filmmaker.

From the sounds of it, Trump was pretty desperate to score movie roles back in the day. "We got a call from a mutual friend saying, 'Donald is looking to be in movies,'" Bo Derek recalled to Yahoo! Entertainment in 2021. This is how he wound up appearing alongside her in the critically condemned 1990 comedy "Ghosts Can't Do It." Derek suggested that some subterfuge was involved in Trump's casting, sharing her suspicion that he was actually the person who called her.

In the movie, Derek's character is trying to find a warm body for her dead husband's ghost to call home. Trump was in his element, as his scenes were filmed inside a boardroom, and he also got to hear Derek say to him, "You're too pretty to be bad." But he was bad enough to win a Razzie award for worst supporting actor.

When Donald Trump started making his controversial cabinet picks in 2024, it was more like he was casting a new season of "The Celebrity Apprentice." There was Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, TV personality Dr. Oz as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, and former WWE CEO Linda McMahon as education secretary. But Trump doesn't always choose the most qualified candidate for the job. While taking questions from the crowd at a 2007 event, Trump told one woman she could work as a flight attendant on one of his planes because he found her attractive. "If she worked on my plane, that's like a death wish for me," he then said to the audience before comparing the way he behaves around beautiful women to an alcoholic tempted by Scotch. He also admitted to once hiring a teen with zero relevant experience as a waitress simply because she was pretty.

In 1997, Trump's Mar-a-Lago physician was another hire who could have used a headshot instead of a resume. In a profile for The New Yorker, he joked that she went to "Baywatch Medical School" and explained why he didn't care if she had extensive medical training by saying, "Because by the time she's spent fifteen years at Mount Sinai, we don't want to look at her."

Trump learned that looks-based hiring isn't the best idea when he had to fire a receptionist because she wasn't putting through calls from VIPs such as Regis Philbin. In "Trump: How to Get Rich," he shares this cautionary tale before musing, "But you should have seen her. What a knockout."