Why Ben Stiller won't cut Donald Trump's cameo from 'Zoolander' movie

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Ben Stiller understands the backlash surrounding now-President Donald Trump's cameo in his iconic 2001 movie "Zoolander" but the actor/director isn't cutting Trump's scene from the film anytime soon.

During an interview on The Daily Beast‘s podcast “The New Abnormal,” Stiller spoke about his decision to keep the scene despite negative comments from fans.

“I’ve had people reach out to me and say, you should edit Donald Trump out of 'Zoolander,'” the 54-year-old explained. “But at the end of the day, that was a time when that exists and that happened.”

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“There were so many movies [back then] that had a silly cameo from Donald Trump,” Stiller added. “He represented a certain thing.”

In the scene, Trump and his wife Melania Trump are giving an interview at the VH1 Fashion Awards about Derek Zoolander's (Stiller) contributions to the fashion and modeling world.

Stiller said about the cameo, “We were shooting at the now-defunct VH1 Fashion Awards … and as people were coming up the red carpet, we pulled them aside and asked them to talk about Derek Zoolander, and so Trump and Melania did that.”

Back in the 1990s to early aughts, Trump made a number of appearances in TV shows and movies including "Two Weeks Notice" with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," "Sex & the City," "Spin City," and "The Little Rascals."

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Stiller also addressed his movie "Tropic Thunder" in which Robert Downey Jr. donned blackface. "'Tropic Thunder' probably would not have been made [in 2020],” Stiller admitted. “It would be tone-deaf right now to make it.”