Former That ’70s Show star Topher Grace recently opened up about dating Ivanka Trump, saying that “it wasn’t a political statement.”
The topic came up while Grace was speaking with The Daily Beast, and he spoke candidly about their brief time together.
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“This was a decade ago. I met her here in New York and we went on a couple of dates,” he added. “I wouldn’t say that we ‘dated,’ but… I didn’t do it for political reasons.”
Trump would go on to eventually marry real-estate heir Jared Kushner and Grace married actress Ashley Hinshaw — now Ashley Grace — in 2016, with the couple welcoming their first child the following year.
While he is certainly recognizable from the many years he spent laying Eric Forman on That ’70s Show, Grace has a taken on a number of film and TV projects throughout his career, with the most recent being the new Spike Lee film BlacKkKlansman.
The series features character “Ron Stallworth, an African American detective in Colorado Springs, Colorado” who “infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and eventually becomes the head of the chapter.”
In the biographical crime film, Grace plays real-life former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke during the time when he was head of the organization.
He recently spoke to Deadline about the “risky” role and explained how he prepared for it.
“The role was really risky in the sense that it’s not even a little close to anyone I’ve ever played or ever known. He’s a guy who is full of hate,” Grace shared. “And worse, he’s really intelligent, which is what makes him really evil. You play bad guys, but you never really play truly evil people on screen.”
“The movie is adapted from book by Ron Stallworth, and the author really lived through this experience; he’s played by John David Washington in the film,” he added. “When I read for Spike, I had to tell him how uncomfortable it made me, to say some of the things this man says. He was wonderful about it, and he was always great about making you feel safe.”
“When we did the table read, Ron was there, and he was there through filming too, and there’s no such thing as having too much information when you’re doing a movie like this,” Grace went on to say. “To have this guy who went through this come out and spend an hour and a half talking to us about his experience, it informs you more and makes you realize your responsibility. Not to this character, but to the audience, to be honest about it.”
BlacKkKlansman lands in theaters on August 10.
