Woody Harrelson says he smoked weed to survive a 'brutal' dinner with Donald Trump
Woody Harrelson once got high just so he could get through an evening with Donald Trump.
In a new interview with Esquire magazine, the actor describes a night in 2002 when he attended a dinner party at Trump Tower.
The guest list included Donald and Melania Trump, Harrelson and Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler who, at the time, was serving as the 38th governor of Minnesota.
"So we all met at Trump Tower, sat down. Melania was there, only she wasn't his wife yet. And it was, let me tell you, a brutal dinner. Two and a half hours," Harrelson told Esquire.
According to Harrelson, the purpose of the dinner was for Trump — who was considering running for president as a Democrat in the 2004 race — to speak with Ventura about being his running mate.
Harrelson said things quickly went downhill as Trump began dominating the conversation.
"Now, at a fair table with four people, each person is entitled to 25 percent of the conversation, right? I’d say Melania got about 0.1 percent, maybe. I got about 1 percent. And the governor, Jesse, he got about 3 percent. Trump took the rest," he said.
Eventually, the three-time Academy Award nominee had to escape the conversation.
"It got so bad I had to go outside and burn one before returning to the monologue monopoly," Harrelson said. "Listen, I came up through Hollywood, so I've seen narcissists. This guy was beyond. It blew my mind."
The Zombieland star did mention one positive takeaway, though. While Harrelson said he found Trump self-centered, he did admire his perspective on wealth.
"He did say one thing that was interesting, though," Harrelson added. "He said, 'You know, I’m worth four billion dollars,' or maybe he said five billion dollars — one of those numbers, I forget. Anyway, he said, 'I'm worth however many billion dollars. But when I die, no matter how much it is, I know my kids are going to fight over it.'"
This wasn't the first time Harrelson brushed shoulders with a future member of the Trump administration. Last year, the actor told a story on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about meeting Vice President Mike Pence in the '80s.
Both men attended Hanover College, a small, Presbyterian-affiliated school in Indiana. Harrelson, who had plans of becoming a minister, told Jimmy Kimmel about his first time meeting Pence.
"I knew him, yeah. We were both very religious," Harrelson said. "It was a Presbyterian college at the time, and I was there on a Presbyterian scholarship, and he was involved with the church activities."
Ultimately, the two men went down very different paths.
"Seeing as how I’m not quite in that ballpark now, I don’t know how we'd get along," Harrelson said of Pence. "Because I think he's still quite religious and just a whole different brand of religious. That kind of fervor that you really don’t want."
