What Michael – yes Michael – Bolton’s book tells us about Trump and Ukraine
Melania Knauss (later Trump), Donald Trump and Michael Bolton in 2000. Image by Getty/Davidoff Studios Photography/Contributor
By PJ Grisar June 22, 2020
Author’s note: On Tuesday, June 23, Simon & Schuster will release John Bolton’s tell-all, “The Room Where It Happened.” Since the book first made headlines in January for what it had to say about Trump’s dealings with the Ukraine, its content has been a regular source of speculation and exclusive excerpts. The Trump administration was so incensed by its revelations that it tried to prevent the book’s publication. But as this article from last winter can attest, the former national security adviser is far from the only one to have an opinion on the president or the country that ended up getting him impeached. Which leads us to revisit the pressing question: What does soft-pop idol Michael Bolton’s book say about Ukraine?
In his memoir, “The Soul of It All: My Music, My Life” (2013), Bolton (né Bolotin) traces his rich baritone and capable upper register to the motherland.
“I can’t explain where my vocal range came from,” Bolton writes. “I’m guessing it came from my mother’s gene pool given her sweet soprano. If my voice comes from farther back in my family history, there may have been a rocking cantor among my Ukrainian ancestors in Kiev.”
While Bolton might need a sit down with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to confirm this cantorial conjecture, the text makes a further reference to Ukraine — one that embroils Bolton in a game of high-wire international politics.
In 1992, a leonine Bolton campaigned for William Jefferson Clinton’s presidential run, singing “When I’m Back on My Feet Again” as part of a Clinton/Gore campaign rally in East Rutherford, N.J.. When Clinton became president, Bolton’s relationship with him and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, continued.
“My work on behalf of his campaign resulted in many invitations to perform at the White House or simply to attend events there,” Bolton wrote. “I was surprised to be invited to a reception for officials from the Ukrainian government. My surprise turned to stunned gratitude when Hillary hugged me and said, ‘We thought you’d enjoy this one, Michael, because we remembered your grandfather was from Ukraine.”
What Bolton and the Ukrainian officials discussed during their meeting is unclear, but likely not the stuff of state secrets.
The “How Can We be Lovers?” crooner remains close with the Clintons. He endorsed Hillary Clinton’s run for president in 2016 and sang as part of a January 12, 2016 fundraiser in Detroit.
Bolton also has a Trump connection. In his memoir, he recalls dating Trump’s then-girlfriend Marla Maples while she and the real estate mogul were on a hiatus. “That was the first situation in which I went through airports and saw stories involving me in the tabloids, outside of a music event,” Bolton wrote.
It wouldn’t be the last time the tabloids picked up on the story. In March of 2019, a number of outlets seized on a detail from an FBI probe of Trump’s company in which Maples’s publicist (and convicted email harasser), Chuck Jones, alleged that while Maples and Trump were dating she “had brought singer Michael Bolton back to her room following Trump’s departure for a West Coast trip.”
Whether or not the fling was in fact an affair, it’s unlikely that Bolton will have further interactions with the Ukrainian government through the current administration.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected]
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