Of all of Trump’s failed businesses (Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump University, etc. etc. ad infinitum), I’d forgotten that Trump Models was still actually up and running. But now, after 18 years, the modeling agency is reportedly going the way of Trump Ice (his bottled water) and Trump the Game (his version of Monopoly), and shutting down business. I’m not sure if anyone can actually be surprised by this. It’s been called an “inconsequential agency,” and prior to the election, it came out that the agency–which once employed Trump’s not-yet-wife Melania Knauss–violated numerous immigration laws and mistreated their models. But since we know hypocrisy isn’t something most Trump supporters concern themselves over, that didn’t have an impact on the election. Just like his Access Hollywood tape, the coinage of the “Nasty Woman” battle cry, the lewd comments he’s made about being “allowed” to see young beauty pageant contestants changing in their dressing rooms–Trump’s misogyny gets him enough support to override the strong feelings his voters supposedly have about undocumented immigrants.
While none of that may have cost him the election, Trump’s words and actions are reportedly taking a toll on businesses like this one. A former employee of the agency told Refinery29 that the agency’s reputation has been having trouble for a while.
“The people who got the worst of it were the models; they’d arrive on set and people would say, ‘Oooh, you’re from Trump [Models]? How dare you,’ or ‘Why are you still with them? …The girls would explain how hard we worked for them, how much they trusted us, and how we never made them feel unsafe: They were constantly harassed by employees on shoots, especially by other models.”
Just before the election, one model took to Instagram to publicly part ways, saying that “as a woman, a mother, an American and a human being, I cannot wake up Wednesday morning being the least bit related to the Trump brand; win or lose.”
We can list beauty contestants, Rockettes, and now models among all the groups of women who don’t want to work under Trump. Can we just put a ban on his name being associated with women in any capacity, ever, until the end of time?
(via Mother Jones, image: Shutterstock)
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