Parallel Breakups in the Spotlight

Thompson’s own marriage had ended just a few years earlier. She wed Branagh in 1989, but the relationship unraveled when she discovered he had been having an affair with his Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein co-star Helena Bonham Carter.

The breakup was deeply painful, she has said, leaving her feeling humiliated. Professionally, however, Thompson was at a high point. In 1995, she starred in and wrote the screenplay for Sense and Sensibility, earning her second Academy Award.

Trump’s marriage to Maples followed a different trajectory. The two met in 1985 at a charity tennis match while he was still married to his first wife, Ivana Trump. Their affair became public in 1990, leading to his divorce from Ivana the following year. Trump married Maples in 1993, separated from her in 1997, and finalized the divorce two years later.

For Thompson, the odd phone call from Trump remains nothing more than a quirky anecdote — a “what if” moment that never went anywhere, but still makes for a memorable story.