If Donald Trump gets wind of a new biography of Queen Elizabeth II, America might be due for another meltdown on Truth Social, because the book claims that his oft-expressed admiration for the late monarch was not reciprocated.
Indeed, the queen reportedly found the 45th president to be “very rude,” according to the book, “A Voyage Around The Queen,” by veteran British journalist Craig Brown. The book has been serialized in the Daily Mail this week.
Trump visited the U.K. twice in 2018 and 2019. A few weeks after one of those visits, the queen confided her true feelings about Trump to “a lunch guest,” Brown reported. She said she was especially put off by the way the former reality TV star couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as if he was in search of others he might find more interesting, Brown wrote.
Known as an astute judge of character, Elizabeth also wondered about his marriage to Melania Trump, a Slovenian former model who is his third wife, Brown reported.
“She also believed President Trump ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him?” Brown said about the former first lady, who is 24 years younger than her husband.
“Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin,” Brown wrote. “She may not have found their company convivial; upon their departure, she may even have voiced a discreet word of disapproval.”
But Elizabeth would only reveal those opinions to people very close to her, if at all, according to Daily Mail columnist Richard Kay. She was famous for her discretion, which make the revelations in Brown’s book pretty astonishing and “bizarre,” Kay said. The long-serving monarch was especially firm about never speaking critically about any visiting head of state, “no matter how ghastly” they could be, Kay wrote.
But once in a while, her views would become known, Kate acknowledged, including that she thought one of her prime ministers, Tony Blair, carried himself with “a certain hauteur,” or when she was heard expressing displeasure over the “rude” and demanding Chinese delegation that accompanied President Xi Jinping.
Now, it appears that the queen’s alleged views on Trump are leaking out in ways he may not expect. The former president showed a lifelong obsession with royalty and often tried to associate his name with members of the British royal family, according to NBC News.
At one point, he falsely claimed that King Charles III and his first wife, the late Princess Diana, sent him $50,000 to become charter members of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, NBC News reported. Trump also famously said he tried to date Diana, post-divorce, though she reportedly said that he gave her “the creeps.”
When it came to Elizabeth II, Trump spoke in reverential tones, the Daily Mail reported. He and former First Lady Melania Trump first met the queen for tea at Windsor Castle in July 2018 and then became guests for a full-blown state visit the following year. He said he admired her personally and for her sense of duty.
“For his part, Donald Trump was confident he had been her favorite guest ever,” Brown wrote. Trump was quoted on Fox News, saying, “There are those that say they have never seen the queen have a better time, a more animated time” than in his company. “Then I got criticized for it, because they said we were having too much fun,” he added.
Brown is “an upper class Old Etonian” and elite “insider,” who worked as a Parliamentary sketch writer and was a contributor to the celebrated British scandal-and-satire magazine Private Eye, according to the Daily Beast, which said Brown is “well-connected.”
The Daily Mail pointed to some issues that came up during Trump and the queen’s first meeting in July 2018 at Windsor Castle, which could have shaped the queen’s opinion.
The visit “was mired in controversy,” the Daily Mail reported. Anti-Trump protesters crowded the streets of London, and a giant “baby blimp” — a massive balloon depicting Trump as a baby — was given permission to float in that year. Due to the “political toxicity” surrounding Trump’s administration, the president was not invited to a “state visit” but to what was classified as a “working visit,” which meant little in the way of pomp and pageantry, the Daily Mail also said.
It was remarked upon at the time that Trump kept the then-92-year-old monarch waiting for 10 minutes in the 80-degree heat outside Windsor Castle. For a ceremonial inspection of the queen’s guard of honor, Trump repeatedly broke protocol by walking in front of the queen, the Daily Mail said. He also forced her to sidestep to get alongside him.
Trump got his state dinner at Buckingham Palace the following year, and his four adult children — Ivanka, Donald Trump Jr., Eric and Tiffany — were invited to come along.
The Daily Mail said Trump was on his best behavior during that visit, and it was blunder-free until the president gave the queen a toast, praising her as a “great, great woman” while placing his hand on her back — again breaking protocol.
The Daily Mail said that Buckingham Palace has not commented on Brown’s claims. Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser, has said that Trump was “awestruck” by the queen, and saw a meeting with her as a sign that he ‘had made it in life,” the Daily Mail reported.
When Elizabeth II died in September 2022, he issued a statement saying that he and his wife would “always cherish our time together with the queen and never forget Her Majesty’s generous friendship, great wisdom and wonderful sense of humor.”
Trump added: “What a grand and beautiful lady she was – there was nobody like her!”