Donald Trump remembered the great Aretha Franklin today as someone who “worked” for him. I don’t know who or what he’s talking about– and neither does he. She never, ever worked for him in any capacity. (Trump told a press pool this morning “I want to begin today by expressing my condolences to the family of a person I knew well. She worked for me on numerous occasions.”
More importantly, Aretha was very much against Trump’s policies and political platforms. She was against them so much that she stopped staying in the Trump International Hotel in Columbus Circle once he announced his presidential campaign.
The last time Aretha stayed at the Trump may have been Memorial Day, 2014. She cooked a Memorial Day barbeque in the two kitchens of her double suite for me, a few friends, her son Kecalf, and his two teenage kids. She sent the door man out to get the base for bbq sauce. It was so good that we joked she was going to market “Aretha’s Hot Sauce.”
After that, Aretha stopped staying at the Trump and moved to the Ritz Carlton, formerly the St. Moritz, on Central Park South. She made that her New York headquarters and threw several parties there. The Ritz Carlton loved her. Aretha was most certainly a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump.
