“Once the cameras stopped rolling, Omarosa also told me some other s— that I’m too scared to put into this book,” Mathews, 40, writes. “The day after we got out of theCelebrity Big Brotherhouse, we all met up at Marissa’s house to finally talk about all the stuff no one wanted to mention while cameras had been rolling twenty-four hours a day.”
He continues: “Like a scene right out of a spy movie, Omarosa made us all put our phones in a corner, and then she spilled some serious White House tea that shook us all to the core. She dramatically swore us all to secrecy.”
Newman, 46, was equally circumspect with PEOPLE, saying she was glad Mathews didn’t renege on their pact of secrecy.
“I shared a lot of very intimate details about my experience at the White House with my cast-mates and they assured me they would keep it confidential,” she says. “Each of them promised to keep the information private. I am glad he left the juiciest bits out of his book.”
It might be the first time something juicy about her time with Trumpdidn’tbecome public.
But in 2017, Newman wasfired from her positionas director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison. Almost immediately, in keeping with the theatrical and aggressive style she shared with the president, Newman began teasing a tell-all.
A year later, she releasedUnhinged, in which sheclaimed that the president was in “mental decline,”among other alarming allegations. The book went on toreach No. 1 onThe New York Times‘ bestseller list, even as the White House labeled her a liar with a grudge.
“Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administration are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusations,” Sarah Sanders, then the press secretary, said in a statement at the time.
“It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the President during her time in the administration,” Sanders said.
Trump’scampaign also filed for arbitration, accusing the former White House aide of violating the terms of a 2016 nondisclosure agreement. And the president himself blasted Newman in personal terms, calling her a“dog” with “zero credibility.”
Aides alsoreportedly began whisperingthat Newman’s White House position had been mostly irrelevant and she herself a troublemaker more than anything.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty
The cast of season 1 ofCelebrity Big Brother.
Mathews writes that after the formerApprenticestar told him that he was “the biggest threat in the house,” he knew she had to go.
“But I also wasn’t stupid—I knew having her on the show meant huge ratings,” he writes. “I knew the fact that Omarosa was in the house meant one thing: Millions of Americans were watching to see what she’d say about her former boss, our commander in chief.”
One night, Mathews waited until everyone else was in bed and then talked to Newman in the backyard. He wanted to know why she would follow President Trump to the White House.
“Does anybody say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Mathews asked.
“Who has that power to say what’s going on?” Mathews asked.
Zach Pagano/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Andrew Toth/Getty
Atria Books
RELATED VIDEO: Omarosa Manigault Newman Snaps at Savannah Guthrie During Heated Interview
“I don’t know. I’m not there. It’s not my circus, not my monkeys,” she said. “I’d like to say not my problem but I can’t say that because — it’s bad.”
“Should we be worried?” Mathews asked, begging her to tell him everything would be “be okay.”
She replied: “No, it’s not gonna be okay. It’s not. So bad.”
She also compared leaving the White House togetting “freed off the plantation.”
Mathews wondered if it was the FBI or CIA, he writes. After she was driven away, “I swear to God a scary black helicopter right out of aTom Cruisesummer blockbuster flew over,” he writes. “Was it her security? The government watching? Or just a news helicopter headed to cover a story? I’ll never know for sure, but I wasn’t about to mess with that s—.”
source: people.com
