Bo Derek reflects on her famous cornrows and Donald Trump: 'I don’t need my president to be my moral leader'
Actress Bo Derek, whose 1979 comedic film 10 made her a sex symbol, has a new documentary — and thoughts on President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the 63-year-old star spoke exclusively to Variety from her home in Santa Barbara, a Southern California neighborhood also occupied by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Bo shares the home with her boyfriend of 18 years John Corbett, who is known for playing Aiden on Sex and the City.
No subject seemed off-limits to Derek, who stars in the Aug. 16 Reelz documentary In My Own Words. Particularly the time she worked with President Trump on the 1989 film Ghosts Can’t Do It, directed by her ex-husband John Derek, who died in 1998 from heart failure. Trump made a cameo, earning a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor.
Reflecting on Trump’s path from businessman to president, Bo said, “...We had a mutual friend who said, ‘You’re making a movie and Donald Trump is looking to be a cameo in something. Do you have anything?’ So we wrote a scene and he was great.”
But the actress demurred when asked to name her favorite presidential candidate. “I don’t talk about who I vote for anymore,” she told Variety. “I supported Bush 43 and I became one of the poster girls for the Republicans. But I’m an independent. I don’t want to be pigeonholed and labeled as one thing or another.”
Bo expressed hope for the country amid the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think it’s really rough right now,” she said. “I think we’re going to come out on the other side better. What happened to George Floyd, I know racism was there but I didn’t think it would be so blatant with a policeman killing somebody knowing a video camera was rolling on him. That just blows my mind. But I do think changes are going to happen.”
On Trump’s ability to help the country, Bo answered, “I don’t think he has the influence that people think he has. I don’t need my president to be my moral leader. Could he have done more? I don’t know. We had Obama and not that much happened in that area when I look back on those eight years. I don’t think this gets solved at a presidential level.”
The interview also explored a famous seaside scene from 10, in which Bo wore cornrows, a traditional Black hairstyle. Calling the moment in time “life-changing,” Bo said the look, which her late husband suggested, would not be acceptable in 2020.
“I get in trouble for it now,” she told Variety. “I get a lot of criticism for being a culture vulture, that I’m being insulting and even worse, hurtful to African American women that I copied their hairstyle. But at the time, the reaction was very different. I can’t tell you how many African American women came up to me and said things like, ‘Thank you so much. I work at a bank and my boss would never let me have that hairstyle at work but now I can.’”
These days, Bo keeps a low-key schedule with Corbett, 59, and without the pressure of marriage. “...Right now, if I’m home, I wake up, make coffee, feed the horses, feed the dogs, feed myself, go to my computer, work in the garden, swim in the pool for exercise and then feed horses, feed dogs, feed ourselves,” she told Variety. “John and I watch Jeopardy while we eat and then we watch movies all night.”
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