Cheryl Hines says her body had the same reaction to Donald Trump that some people have to shellfish — an instant breakout.
“The Curb Your Enthusiasm” star revealed that the first time she met the former president, she erupted in hives from head to toe and watched her lip swell to the size of a baby carrot,” according to Daily Mail.
In her new memoir, “Unscripted,” Hines describes how the episode unfolded during the height of her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chaotic 2024 campaign. She had flown to Milwaukee thinking she’d quietly join him after a long day of speeches. Instead, she was whisked through a dark parking lot into a private hotel suite, where she came face to face with Trump — bandage on his ear, ego intact — just days after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Already running on nerves, Hines admits her anxiety was building long before she saw him.
“Clearly, my concern for Bobby’s safety during the campaign was for good reason. I wished he wasn’t out there in crowds of people every day. The risk was too great,” she writes.
That same night, her husband called to say Trump wanted to talk.
She wrote, “Bobby kept calling me in between TV appearances that night. News outlets wanted to talk to him about the assassination attempt. Later, he called me and said President Trump wanted to speak to him. It was almost midnight.”
Trump wanted to meet in person.
“My anxiety was reaching a new high,” she recalls. “What did this mean? My therapist was getting desperate texts from me in the middle of the night. It felt like everything was happening too fast.”
By the time she arrived in Milwaukee, she thought she’d be there for moral support.
“Oh my God. I wasn’t mentally prepared for this,” she writes.
The meeting stretched for an hour and a half — and the second she walked out, her body revolted.
“I’ve never broken out in hives before, not once,” she writes, “but suddenly I had hives all up and down my arms and I could feel them making their way across my abdomen. Was I allergic to something there? That night, one of Bobby’s staff joked that I must’ve been allergic to President Trump.”
The hives kept spreading, and her lip ballooned.
“Between my hives and my swollen lip, I really was a sight to see,” she adds. “I looked like a casualty from Botched, the show about plastic surgery gone wrong.”
A doctor ruled out an allergic reaction and blamed stress.
“I’d advise you to try to find a way to not be so stressed,” he told her. “Oh, OK, I’ll work on that,” she quipped. “My rubbery lips bounced up and down.”
She left the visit with steroids, an EpiPen, and enough embarrassment to fill another chapter.
“It was the perfect kick-off to my new effort in finding a way to be less stressed as the doctor suggested,” the actress continued.
But if Hines thought that moment was peak anxiety, “The View” had other plans. Invited to promote “Unscripted,” she instead found herself grilled about her husband’s politics.
“You know, I was actually hoping that it was going to be more personal on ‘The View,’” she told Billy Bush later. “But it was what it was. They just wanted to grill me about Bobby.”
The actress handled it gracefully but didn’t hide her disappointment.
“I mean, I don’t think the ladies on ‘The View’ asked me one question about my book,” she said, “But, you know, that’s OK.”
Then, in another sit-down with Bill Maher, she confessed the scrutiny had changed how she sees both sides.
“Well, that is true because, the Republicans have been very kind to me, from the beginning,” she told him, according to the New York Post, explaining how liberals, like the women on the popular ABC talk show, have shunned her for standing by her husband.
Adding, “Even from the beginning, when Bobby was running as a Democrat, they weren’t mean, and they never have been. And I can’t say that for the Democrats.”
Many are sure to have a field day with her confession, joking that stress alone could qualify as a medical condition after meeting Trump.
