Everyone was well aware Trump’s temper during his time in office, but how it was apparently soothed is quite surprising – it turns out he loves a good Broadway show tune just like the rest of us.
The musical of choice being Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Cats and the hit song “Memory” was the tantrum tamer.
It seems to have been a such a common occurrence that a White House aide was dubbed “the Music Man” for playing the song and other show tunes, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has reportedly recalled in her new book I’ll Take Your Questions Now that was released today (October 5).
Since this was revealed, Betty Buckley, a Tony award winner in 1983 for her portrayal of Grizabella who emotionally belts out “Memory” has shared her thoughts on Trump’s choice of soothing song in a recent interview with CNN‘s Jim Acosta and believes it indicates Trump’s soul is “so damaged.”
“When this book came out and I understood that they were literally using the song to calm him down in his fits of rage, somehow it all made sense to me,” Buckley said.
“I was like, oh man. You know, the guy is so wounded, his soul is so damaged. And I feel that on some level this beautiful lyric by Trevor Nunn, and the music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, resonates with what remains of the window into whatever soul he might actually have.”
“You know, he has this insatiable need to be loved because daddy just didn’t,” she continued. “And neither did mommy, so it would seem. And so, he’s really mad at the world about that. But Grizabella is a character that is about longing, and the need to be touched and the need to connect. And so I guess underneath it all that’s what’s happening here.”
During the interview she also joked about forming a government “Broadway Commission” which would send singers “to the hotspots of the world including Mar-A-Lago or anywhere else Trump lands next.”
Buckley has previously shared her disdain at the Trump campaign for playing her rendition of “Memory” at their rallies.
“There’s just no respect or empathy or compassion for any other human beings about anything. He’s the most self-centered, self-serving, contemptible person on the planet,” she told Broadway World.
Cats creator Andrew Lloyd-Webber even sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump over using the song at political rallies, the Standard reported.
We’ll never be able to listen to “Memory” in the same way again…