Trump: How to Get Rich

I immediately sent a letter to Les Moonves telling him I was exercising my option to buy out CBS. To my shock, Les took the position that we had never agreed on an option. NBC was waiting in the wings, and after a weeklong bidding war I bought out CBS and created a new partnership with NBC.

At the first meeting of the new board, I asked the Miss Universe staff to dust off some of the cross-promotional ideas they had pitched to CBS over the years. Within minutes, Jeff Gaspin of NBC approved the production of a Miss USA Fear Factor to lead into the Miss USA telecast. In addition, the Today show agreed to do five-minute live shots from each pageant location. The results were amazing. For years the pageants had tried to get a plug on the third-rated CBS Morning Show and couldn’t get as much as a returned phone call. Now they were getting major promotion on the nation’s number one morning program and an Internet tie-in through NBC.com.

The Miss USA Fear Factor was the highest rated in the series and the 2003 Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants received the highest ratings since I had bought the company. Additionally, the Telemundo simulcast of the pageant was one of the highest-rated programs in the network’s history.

The cross-promotional concept I visualized in 1996 was finally realized in 2003, and it never would have happened if I hadn’t been willing to walk away from CBS, say no, and pursue a better opportunity elsewhere.

The art of the hair.

The Art of the Hair

Over the years, I have been criticized for the way I comb my hair, but never so much as since the opening show of The Apprentice. New York magazine wrote that I’d perfected the pompad-over. The New York Times called it an elaborate structure best left to an architecture critic.

David Letterman and Jay Leno regularly do quips about it. Matt Lauer, who with Katie Couric has taken the Today show to new heights, told me I should just give up the ghost and shave it off or give myself some kind of buzz cut like the one he has. Likewise, Pat O’Brien, the star of Access Hollywood, told me he had heard about Matt Lauer’s comment and totally agrees with him.

Personally, I think it looks good, but I’ve never said my hair was my strongest point. I told Pat and Matt that I’m just not ready to change my style. I’ve been combing it this way for a long time and I might as well keep doing it. The ratings of The Apprentice are sky-high, and maybe they would drop if I changed the look at this point.

I’m amazed by how often people ask me whether or not I wear a hairpiece, a wig, or a rug, as it is affectionately known.

The answer, for the record, is emphatically and categorically no: I do not wear a rug. My hair is one hundred percent mine. No animals have been harmed in the creation of my hairstyle.

However, I must admit that the day may come when I will wear a hairpiece, wig, or rug—but only if I go bald, which I hope never happens. The reason for this is because I, like most men, am very vain. Many times over the years, I’ve heard people say that men are vainer than women, and I believe it. Guys don’t like to talk about it, but Random House is paying me a fortune for this book and specifically requested a chapter on the art of the hair, so I will admit to my vanity.

I will also reveal some of my hair-related secrets.

The reason my hair looks so neat all the time is because I don’t have to deal with the elements very often. I live in the building where I work. I take an elevator from my bedroom to my office. The rest of the time, I’m either in my stretch limousine, my private jet, my helicopter, or my private club in Palm Beach, Florida. If Matt Lauer had my lifestyle, he might not have changed his hairstyle—although his hair looks great now.

If I happen to be outside, I’m probably on one of my golf courses, where I protect my hair from overexposure by wearing a golf hat. It’s also a way to avoid the paparazzi. Plus the hat always has a big TRUMP logo on it—it’s an automatic promotion.

I will also admit that I color my hair. Somehow, the color never looks great, but what the hell, I just don’t like gray hair.

I wonder how much longer my hair will be a national topic of conversation. Letterman and Leno have been funny, but one person I don’t like is Joy Behar, a woman who works for Barbara Walters on The View. For weeks, she was attacking me, insisting that I wear a wig, so Barbara and her staff called me and asked if I would surprise them and appear on the show. I did, and when I ran my hand through my hair and proved that it was real, everybody laughed and that was the end of that.