Tom Arnold Scuffles With Mark Burnett Over Trump ‘Apprentice’ Tape
Tom Arnold promotes his new show “The Hunt for the Trump Tapes.” Image by Getty Images/Jesse Grant/Stringer
By PJ Grisar September 19, 2018
Actor Tom Arnold tussled with Reality TV maven Mark Burnett at a pre-Emmys party Sunday, September 16, and the story just keeps getting stranger.
The fight, for which Arnold filed a police report Monday morning, appears to be regarding the long-rumored outtakes of Burnett’s show “The Apprentice” in which Donald Trump allegedly drops the N-word. Taking a much different view of the administration than his ex-wife, Roseanne Barr, Arnold has been leading the charge to release the recordings as part of his new show “The Hunt for the Trump Tapes” which premieres on Viceland September 18.
The encounter seems to have drawn bruises, if not blood. Burnett’s wife, Roma Downey tweeted a blurry picture of her injured hand. Arnold replied to the Tweet, denying he attacked Downey and threatening to file a police report against her husband and sue her for defamation. On his own Twitter, he claimed that Burnett instigated the attack, choking him.
Got this bruise tonight when Tom Arnold tried to ambush my husband Mark and me at a charity event. Is your TV show worth it Tom?Please stop pic.twitter.com/lXvuKjIMI2
— Roma Downey (@RealRomaDowney) September 17, 2018
Bullshit. You lie your crazy husband attacked me you psycho. I’m filing police report & suing you for defamation. https://t.co/9yXAEXM6na
— Tom Arnold (@TomArnold) September 17, 2018
In relating the altercation to others at the party, Deadline reports, Arnold claimed that he not only was able to secure the incriminating “Apprentice” tapes, but had handed them off to the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow on Sunday. Farrow, who won a Pulitzer for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, has yet to confirm this claim.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.
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