Woody Harrelson said ‘brutal’ dinner with Trump made him step outside to ‘burn one’

Over two decades ago, in 2002, True Detective star Woody Harrelson shared a dinner table with Donald Trump, years before the latter became President of the United States.

The 64-year-old Hollywood A-lister opened up about the far-from-pleasant encounter in an Esquire interview published in 2019.

Harrelson explained that the then-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura invited him to 'a brutal dinner' at Trump Tower because Trump, now 79, was trying to convince Ventura to be his 2004 Democratic running mate.

The dinner date, which also included Trump's then-fiancée, Melania Knauss, who is now Melania Trump, allegedly went on for over two and a half hours.

Speaking to the outlet, Harrelson began the anecdote: "So Jesse Ventura is a buddy of mine, and he called me up - and this is in, oh, 2002 - and said, 'Donald Trump is going to try to convince me to be his running mate for the Democratic ticket in 2004. Will you be my date?'

"I said, 'Yeah, man.' So we all met at Trump Tower, sat down. Melania was there, only she wasn’t his wife yet. And it was, let me tell you, a brutal dinner. Two and a half hours."

He continued: "The fun part was watching Jesse’s moves. It would look like Trump had him pinned, was going to get him to say yes, and then Jesse would slip out at the last second."

Woody Harrelson opened up about a 2002 dinner with Donald Trump back in 2019 (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

It's clear that Harrelson did not enjoy the social gathering, telling the outlet: "Now, at a fair table with four people, each person is entitled to 25 percent of the conversation, right? I’d say Melania got about 0.1 percent, maybe. I got about one percent.

"And the governor, Jesse, he got about three percent."

The actor then claimed that Trump 'took the rest' of the dinner table airtime.

"It got so bad I had to go outside and burn one before returning to the monologue monopoly," Harrelson joked.

The award-winning star went on to declare: "Listen, I came up through Hollywood, so I’ve seen narcissists. This guy was beyond. It blew my mind."

Harrelson revealed he had to step outside and 'burn one' due to the dinner (Frederic J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images)

However, Harrelson noted that Trump did say 'one thing' that was interesting.

"He said, 'You know, I’m worth four billion dollars,' or maybe he said five billion dollars - one of those numbers, I forget. Anyway, he said, 'I’m worth however many billion dollars. But when I die, no matter how much it is, I know my kids are going to fight over it.'

"That was the one true statement he made that night, and I thought, 'Okay, yeah, that’s pretty cool.'"