Had Marla Maples, ex-wife of Donald Trump and mother of the long-suffering Tiffany Trump, launched her new lifestyle website one day earlier, it would have been a minor October surprise. We might have interpreted it as a simple way for Maples to capitalize on all the overflow press she and her daughter have caught from Donald’s wake.
Instead, Maples waited until November, during which month her former husband may be elected the next supreme leader of these United States, to provide us a map of her chia seed–strewn paths to holistic wellness. The entire endeavor is a thinly veiled dig at the presidential candidate who reportedly said she had “nice tits, but no brain.”
For instance: Could a person with no brain be all of the things Maples claims to be on her site? Try telling an actress/host/mother/singer/songwriter/“adventurer with purpose”/“lover of all things green” that she’s nothing but the set of breasts you hoped she’d pass on to your one-year-old daughter. From the moment she announced her new site on Twitter, Maples proved to be at least as adept at social media as her ex; you can tell she’s a digital media whiz by her strategic use of the hashtag #website.
In her site’s biography, Maples positions herself as the anti-Trump. She writes that she was born in a town of 661 people (a far cry from the platinum-cradle New York City roots of a certain real-estate heir) and “got her start as an overachieving student, athlete, and homecoming queen.” By boasting of academic aptitude and pageant victory in a single sentence, Maples has expertly calculated exactly how to make her ex-husband’s brain short-circuit and melt through his nose. The site notes Maples’ “triumphant return to the spotlight,” throwing a little bit of shade on the impetus for her spectacular comeback via Dancing With the Stars: the festering disaster of the Trump campaign. Maples also reminds us of her guest appearances on ‘90s sitcoms The Nanny (Trump’s nickname for his wives) and Spin City, which starred Charlie Sheen, the man we all thought was the worst man in the public eye until Trump entered the presidential race.
Like any lifestyle site worth its moon juice, Maples’ new outlet offers tips on eating clean and healthy. Maples describes her diet as gluten-free, “vegan, yet part-time carnivore (lol!),” and “paleo, except for the dairy aspects,” an unholy amalgam of culinary regimes clearly designed to upset the demagogue who once read a Marla Maples profile in People while eating a taco bowl to win over Latino voters. Her press portfolio includes a recipe for “scissor-cut” kale and quinoa salad, an obvious sneer at Trump voters who prefer their salad greens cut with machetes. The recipe was apparently featured on on Where Are They Now, an Oprah Winfrey Network show that I assume followed the post-harvest lives of kale stalks.
It’s clear from Maples’ passions that her marriage to Trump was ill-fated from the start. On her site, she recommends cryotherapy, the frightening practice of standing in a -200 degree booth to try and freeze off your excess fat, which would almost certainly cause the body parts Trump loves most to shrivel into unrecognizable raisins. And in an essay about her vegan-but-also-carnivorous diet, she calls herself an “advocate for a healthy lifestyle and bringing more love into the world!” “More love in the world” is fundamentally incompatible with “ban all Muslims” and “maybe nuke Europe” and “punish women for getting abortions.”
But the biggest affront to the Trump brand Maples could muster is her “Adventures” vertical, a collection of photos from four big trips she’s taken since 1990. She posed in front of a crowd of bewildered black children in “Africa,” visited a friend in the “Peace Core” in Guatemala, and did something with kids and conflict resolution in Israel and Palestine. She also got “centered” on a trip to Mexico, where she helped install water filtration devices. Mexico! Blessed be—the future home of Trump’s big, beautiful wall is also Marla Maples’ serenity getaway. My body toxins are floating away just thinking about it.
