How Donald Trump Played A Major Role In Kristen Stewart's Coming Out Journey
When dealing with criticism on social media from Donald Trump, Kristen Stewart decided to face her powerful hater head-on, using her own very public platform. The "Twilight" actress used her 2017 appearance on "Saturday Night Live" to both address her sexuality and roast Trump, to the delight of her fans across the country. Speaking with Rolling Stone in February 2024, Stewart recalled how her experience coming out came to be, as she was sitting around with the "SNL" writers trying to think of something to do in her monologue.
At some point, one of the writers recalled how Trump had gone after her on Twitter in 2012, after news surfaced that Stewart, then 22, had cheated on her longtime boyfriend Robert Pattinson with married director Rupert Sanders — who was 19 years older than her. Trump tweeted amid the firestorm of controversy, "Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again — just watch. He can do much better!"
"Of course, he had to weigh in on my tarring and feathering. It's like, 'What is this 20-year-old who has no idea about life doing to this man?'" Stewart recalled to Rolling Stone. "He's such a little baby." Which gave the writers the idea to lampoon Stewart's feud with Trump.
Kristen Stewart turned Donald Trump's cyberbullying into a personal victory
When Stewart took to the famed studio 8H stage for her "Saturday Night Live" debut, she kicked things off by reading Trump's tweet about her cheating scandal, and quipped, "I know what you're thinking, 'That's so crazy! The president tweeted about you once!' No, no, no, the president tweeted about me 11 times!" She proceeded to share a number of his comments, which largely focused on repeatedly encouraging Pattinson to dump her.
"To be fair, I don't think Donald Trump hated me, I think he was in love with my boyfriend," Stewart joked. She wrapped up her monologue with her first public comments on her sexuality, saying, "Donald, if you didn't like me then, you're really probably not going to like me now because I'm hosting 'SNL' and I'm, like, so gay, dude."
At the time of her appearance, Stewart had been dating fashion model Stella Maxwell, and the pair hadn't been particularly secretive about their romance. Stewart subsequently sparked a romance with screenwriter Dylan Meyer in August 2019, and revealed that they were engaged during an interview on "The Howard Stern Show" in November 2021, sharing, "We're marrying ... We're totally gonna do it." But they're not in a hurry to make it official, with Stewart saying in March 2024 on the "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast, "I think we have a very loose plan, which is appropriate to us, for after I [direct] my first movie."