The Times Magazine 15Linton did say sorry. The day after the
Kentucky brouhaha, she released a statement
via her publicist. “I apologise for my post
on social media yesterday as well as my
response,” it read. “It was inappropriate and
highly insensitive.”
“I really had my hand slapped for that Fort
Knox picture, which I deserved. It was stupid,”
she acknowledges today. “You make mistakes,
you learn from them. I hope that I’ve learnt
from that one.”
Just not immediately. A few months later,
Linton poked a fresh hornet’s nest when
she was photographed at the US Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, fingering a stack
of fresh dollar bills – the first to feature
Mnuchin’s signature. In a black leather
ensemble, including elbow-length black
leather gloves, a posing, pouting Linton was
compared variously to Cruella de Vil, Darth
Vader and Judge Doom from Who Framed
Roger Rabbit. The Washington Post called her
“exceptionally obnoxious”.
“I’ve faced a lot of criticism over the years,”
she nods. “I think, partly, by being so closely
tied to such a controversial administration.”
Really? You think you were treated badly
because of Trump? “I certainly think that
being so close to the administration put a
target on my back,” she nods.
Is it true that they were sent a parcel of
horse dung that Christmas? A tiny smile
twitches at the corners of Linton’s mouth. “They
accidentally dropped it off at our neighbour’s
house. And we were travelling at the time,
so we never even got a whiff of it. I guess
they didn’t like Steven’s tax bill,” she deadpans.
While Linton may have absorbed more
than a modicum of west-coast earnestness
in her two decades in California, happily she
has also retained a healthy, self-deprecating
humour, used to great effect in her new film.
And when I say her film, it really is hers- Linton has written, produced and directed
it, as well as starring in it.
Me, You, Madness is a lurid, unhinged,
psychedelic homage to Eighties blockbusters,
slasher flicks, daft Leslie Nielsen-style comedies,
movie femmes fatales and American Psycho.
And if all that sounds like some off-
puttingly messy mélange, it’s actually a very
entertaining 98 minutes of nonsense, with
lesbian romps, threesomes, Ed Westwick as
Tyler, an irresistibly hot petty criminal, and
42 deliberately improbable costume changes
by its leading lady.
Linton plays Catherine Black, by her own
description a “materialistic, narcissistic, self-
absorbed, raging misanthrope” who “may or
may not have an undiagnosed personality
disorder” and is “addicted to a variety of
things – mainly cocaine, champagne, sex,
excessive exercise, expensive shoes and
indescribable violence”. She owns a hedge
fund, struts around in gold thigh-high boots,
keeps a hangar full of classic cars, a gun in
her jewellery drawer and a freezer full of
half-severed corpses, the testicles of one
of which she feeds to Tyler for dinner.
“It’s taking the mickey out of my public
persona,” laughs Linton. “That persona
couldn’t be further than who I actually am
in real life, but I have a sense of humour. I’m
able to make fun of myself for entertainment.”
And while a close connection between the
blood-splattered comedy and the corridors
of power in Washington DC might not be
immediately apparent, Linton says it’s there.
“I wanted to write a character that was
shamelessly uninhibited, and I think through
writing that character I felt less inhibited in a
role in a Washington,” she says. In the capital,
she has said, she felt “censored”. “You can’t
wear this. You can’t do that. You start to feel
a little nervous to do anything. I spent plenty
of days in a curled-up little ball, just crying
and not understanding.”
Although Linton has her own production
company, Stormchaser, the process of getting
films made is neither easy nor cheap. “I think
a lot of people will assume that the whole
thing was funded by my husband and that
would annoy me very much, because it’s not
the case,” she says of Me, You, Madness. Before
he became Treasury secretary, Mnuchin, who
is valued at $400 million, was chief information
officer at Goldman Sachs, then CEO of
OneWest Bank, with a sideline as a film
financier – his company, Dune Entertainment,
funded a number of large-budget blockbusters,
including the X-Men franchise and Avatar.
“I’m a big girl and I’ve got my own
resources – not just financial resources, but
also the resources as a businesswoman to
reach out and find people to invest in my
films,” says Linton. “And I financed a large
portion of the film with my own funds.”
For all the characterisation of her imperious
entitlement, Linton is in fact industrious.
Alongside her production company, she’s
launching a vegan fashion line, starting with
a shoe collection, and with plans to include
swimwear and workout wear made from
recycled plastic bottles. She also has her own
charitable fund that supports environmental,
humanitarian and animal welfare projects, and,
she says, one of the positives of her otherwise
bruising time in Washington DC was “an
opportunity to do animal welfare activism
on a completely different level”. Animals are,
she says, earnestly, “my greatest love”.
At home, there are five rescue dogs: “Teddy
is a chihuahua-mix who we found on the
freeway with a broken hip. Snowy, our three-
legged dog, is my husband’s favourite. Every
day, he says, ‘This dog teaches us resilience
and courage, because he never complains- he’s got a great attitude.’ Peanut, who’s the
smallest, was pulled from the Bakersfield
shelter in California. Bisu I have had for a
decade – I adopted her as a rescue in 2011 - and Lily we just got recently, from Mutt
Match LA.” Linton also has three “or four”
rescue horses that she fosters.
Much has been made, particularly in the
US press, of Linton’s growing up in a castle,
‘I THINK THAT BEING SO CLOSE TO THE TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION PUT A TARGET ON MY BACK’
On their wedding day in 2017, with the Trumps and the Pences