Who is Kevin McKay? Ex-bodyguard says Trump was 'snappy' with Melania, never paid back $130 for McDonald's meals
Former President Donald Trump's old bodyguard has now revealed shocking details about the billionaire, including first account details about how Trump owes him $130 (£94) for a McDonald's order that he paid for in 2008. Kevin McKay served Trump in Scotland and claims that for five years he put up with his rants, arguments and temper tantrums. McKay was fired by Trump in 2012.
In an interview, he revealed that when he was fired, he was shocked that the 45th US president forgot to pay back the $130 he lent to him for his favorite McDonald's. McKay, 50, revealed: "He still owes me money for McDonald's He told me he would pay me back, but he never did. For much of the time I was working for him, I kept thinking he would say, ''Kevin, here's that money I owe you,'' but it didn't happen. I thought he was an okay guy when I first started working for him but I guess that as we have all come to see, he is not a man of his word."
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What happened in Scotland?
Revealing the backstory he said that he brought fast food for Trump in 2008 when Trump was going to Aberdeen airport in northeast Scotland after visiting his beloved Trump International golf course.
McKay said: "We were driving from Mr. Trump's estate and just as we got to the Bridge of Don, he asked to stop at McDonald's so he could buy food for the flight back to New York. We were in a convoy of six blacked-out Range Rovers with about 15 men in suits inside, so there must have been some shocked expressions as we pulled up in the car park. Mr. Trump didn't have any UK currency – pounds – so he asked me if I could front him the cash. I said, ''Sure'' and took everyone's order - about 20 cheeseburgers and fries with around 10 or 15 Coca Colas." He further revealed: "I think Mr. Trump ordered two cheeseburgers with fries and diet coke – that was his usual order and he always wanted McDonald's to take with him on the private jet. It cost me about £95 in total and Mr Trump told me, ''You'll get it back.'' It was a decent amount of money for me because I was earning about £2000 ($2700) a month working for Trump. I never heard about it again after that. I should have asked him for the money but I brushed it under the carpet at the time."
In his exclusive interview, McKay recalls the first time he witnessed Trump snapping at Melania, threatening contractors and frightening uncooperative landowners while battling to keep his famous bouffant hair in shape in the fierce Scottish wind. McKay's time as his right-hand man came during the chaotic early years when Trump, now 74, was trying to build his dream golf course in Balmedie, Scotland, near his late mother Mary Anne MacLeod Trump's birthplace on the Isle of Lewis. He was recruited for the job as he had previously guarded celebrities including the pop star Britney Spears.
Speaking from his home in Aberdeen, Kevin said: "I was approached by the estate's project coordinator in 2007 and he asked if I would be interested in doing the security for Donald Trump, who had just purchased land for a golf course. I'd never heard of him but the man told me he was a billionaire from America and wanted to make it one of the best golf courses in the world, so I said, ''Yes, no problem.'' I had to look after MacLeod House on the estate, which he named after his mother, and take care of the family when they came over. It was 12 hours a day, seven days a week and I first met Trump when he arrived later that year to do a press and media conference. He was all praises when we were introduced and said, ''I've heard a lot about you and the good work you're doing.'' He seemed like a really nice guy, pleasant and charming."
Trump's attitude turned sour by his second trip to Scotland, however, as a number of locals with property on the land reserved for the golf course were refusing to sell up. McKay said: "Second time we met he said, ''I want you to give these mother******* a hard time.'' He would tell us to flash our lights and press the horns on our cars right through the night just to get at one person. It was because they wouldn't sell to him but that's their prerogative and I didn't want to get involved. I told him: ''No, we are not going to do that.'' There was one time I was driving Mr. Trump across the estate when he pulled over and pointed at a property owned by a local man. He told the contractor building the course, 'I don't like the look of that mother******* house. I'll give you £10,000 extra in your pocket to build trees all around that house. They put the trees up shortly afterward and I heard through the grapevine that he had the cheek to hand the guy the bill for them. That's the sort of man he is."
McKay said in the interview that Trump also asked him to collect his wife Melania and son Barron from Aberdeen airport when they flew in on his private jet from Paris in 2011. He said: "It was the only time she was here and she looked a million dollars, fantastic. She seemed like a very caring wife and did whatever she was told without question. If Mr. Trump asked her to do something, she would do it straight away. Melania was concerned about Mr Trump when she landed. She asked me, ''How's Donald, has he been sleeping and eating OK?'' Mr Trump was under a lot of stress at the time. He hardly ever slept, four or five hours maximum. He would go to bed at 1 am and up again at 5 am. I knew this because I could see the light on in his room. I don't know if he was on the phone to New York or what, but he was up. And he hardly ate a thing until the evening, when he would often have steak. Melania stayed on the estate the whole time she was here and they seemed to get on well but, him being him, he was a bit snappy with her."
"He's always been like that. One morning she handed him a coffee and he snapped, ''I don't want that, we'll talk about this later. I don't know if it was the coffee that was bothering him or something else. He didn't argue with his wife in front of other people. He was particularly stressed when the offices on the estate were being remodeled and the construction guys installed the wrong windows. I remember him saying, ''Who ordered these windows?'" McKay said. "The builder said it was Trump/" Mr Trump said, "I'm not paying for this crap, I never ordered these windows and I never asked for them and I want it rectified. That was how he negotiated with everyone. There was no haggling with him. One thing Trump could not negotiate with, however, was the local weather." The former bodyguard said: "He used to keep his hair in place with this hairspray he used all the time and his hair is real, I can tell you that for sure. The wind from the North Sea would blow across the estate and he would have a hard time stopping it from flying up and all over the place.'
McKay said that remember how Trump once told him that he was asked to run for the White House back in 2012 but he "turned it down." The same year, the bodyguard was called into the office of Trump International's Executive Vice President Sarah Malone and fired without explanation. Two years later, in 2014 he was jailed for four years for a £400,000 ($556,000) tax fraud (in 2014) and he was suffering in prison when Trump became President in 2017.
He now blames the job for causing the breakup of his marriage in 2011 and the "miscarriage of justice" that led to him being sent down for not paying what is known in the UK as Value Added Tax, or VAT.
Kevin said: "My divorce was finalized in February 2014 and it was the stress of that job and everything that contributed to my marriage ending after 23 years. HMRC (The UK's IRS equivalent) came knocking on my door in May 2014 and questioned me on these VAT returns. From day one I told them I was innocent – it was not me. I wanted a handwriting expert to look at the signature on the VAT return because it wasn't mine. I was on bail for three years because the case kept getting deferred. The Crown later admitted the original VAT documents had been destroyed so it was impossible to get the signature verified. My wife became the Crown's witness against me and got off scot-free. She also changed her story about whose signature was on the documents. The destruction of the documents meant I couldn't prove my innocence and I was convicted of knowingly filing false VAT returns. It was a miscarriage of justice. Now when I look back I wish I had never taken that job. I feel like the courts used me to prove a point – that they did not like Donald Trump. I wasted four years of my life for nothing. Now I am working as a delivery driver when I used to be looking after some of the most important people in the world."