Much is being made of the news that Donald Trump Jr.’s new girlfriend, Bettina Anderson, was invited to Tiffany Trump’s Peter Rabbit-themed baby shower Sunday, hosted by her big sister, Ivanka Trump.
Culture and society writers heralded Anderson’s invitation as a sign that she’s been admitted to the Trump family inner circle, especially after Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, posted an Instagram photo that shows the purported leading ladies of this exclusive MAGA world coterie.
In Lara Trump’s photo, Anderson, a honey-blonde Palm Beach socialite dressed in a pastel-blue-floral baby-doll dress, stands with similarly blonde and pastel-clad Ivanka, Tiffany and Lara Trump. To the Daily Beast and The Cut, Anderson’s presence in this photo means that she has “ascended” to family’s inner circle, following reports that some in the family were not too keen on her dating Donald Trump’s oldest son and potential political heir. Some reports even said that the president “hates her,” The Cut said.
But as much as Anderson scored an invite, it’s notable that neither Ivanka nor Tiffany Trump included her in any of the prominent baby shower photos they posted to their respective Instagram accounts. Anderson showed up in a couple larger group photos that the expectant mother shared, though only in soon-to-disappear Instagram Story posts.
But Anderson was significantly absent from a “sisters” photo that Ivanka Trump posted to her Instagram account. That photo showed Ivanka only with sister-in-law Lara and younger half-sister, Tiffany, who is due to give birth to her first child in about a month.
Of course, Anderson is just the “girlfriend” at this time, since she was first romantically linked to Trump Jr. in the fall, while he was still officially engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle. So Anderson, unlike Guilfoyle, hasn’t made it to the status of fiancee.
But, while some may think there’s not much to read in Ivanka Trump’s exclusion of Anderson from her “sisters” baby shower pic, the president’s reputedly favorite child pointedly used her Instagram account several years ago to express an apparent lack of enthusiasm for Guilfoyle.
Back in 2022, Ivanka Trump left people on social media both mystified and amused by her decision to actually crop Guilfoyle out of a photo of Trump women that was taken at Tiffany Trump’s wedding.
Ivanka Trump served as Tiffany’s matron-of-honor for her marriage to billionaire’s son Michael Boulos at Mar-a-Lago. At one point, she posed for a photo with Tiffany and their other female relatives — Lara Trump, Melania Trump, Tiffany’s mother Marla Maples and Kimberly Guilfoyle. In the photo that Ivanka Trump shared on X and Instagram, Guilfoyle was edited out. People were left to wonder why — given that Guilfoyle was then her future sister-in-law, as well as a MAGA firebrand and top fundraiser for Trump’s presidential campaigns.
It could be that all the women in this photo, except for Guilfoyle, were dressed in pastels or soft shades of white and mauve. As was typical, Guilfoyle, on the far left end, was an outlier in a tight, flashy dress. This dress was black, with excessively large puffy sleeves. It’s possible that Guilfoyle’s little black dress did it not fit into Ivanka Trump’s idea of the appropriate color and style for her sister’s wedding. It could even be that Ivanka disapproved of women wearing black to weddings.
For Tiffany Trump’s baby shower Sunday, Anderson, Trump Jr.’s recent replacement for Guilfoyle, seemed more than willing to adhere to the dress code. She wore florals in a shade of blue, in honor of Tiffany Trump’s recent gender reveal, according to The Cut.
It’s been said that Anderson looks more the part of a future candidate’s wife, if Trump Jr. were to follow in his father’s footsteps and run for president. Anderson, 38, is an “actual to the manor born WASP,” according to a recent report in New York magazine. Unlike Guilfoyle, born in San Francisco to an Irish immigrant father and a Puerto Rican mother, Anderson comes “from the enclaves of Palm Beach that used to look down on the Trumps,” New York magazine also said.
At 56, Guilfoyle also is nearly 10 years older than 47-year-old Trump Jr. and has “submitted to the Mar-a-Lago face restructuring popular among many ladies in Palm Beach MAGAland,” New York magazine also reported. By contrast, Anderson is much more fresh-faced and natural looking.
But the socialite also has had to deal with those reports that some in MAGA land are not enthusiastic about her as Trump Jr.’s new girlfriend. Trump family allies and insiders told the Daily Mail in December that Anderson “isn’t MAGA enough,” while two friends of Trump Jr. expressed concern that she’s essentially a shallow influencer and “social climber” who is using Trump’s oldest son to snag an even wealthier and more powerful romantic target — someone like billionaire Elon Musk.
“It’s one thing to worry about Palm Beach shenanigans making a stop at Mar-a-Lago,” a source close to the Trump transition team told the Daily Mail. “But to let those problems penetrate the White House is a new level of trouble.”
Anderson can perhaps take heart that she at scores an invitation to Trump’s inauguration in January, even though she wasn’t seated with the family in the Capitol Rotunda. Now comes the baby shower invitation. That may be as close to the inner circle that she’ll get for the time being — at least until Ivanka Trump says otherwise.