To truly comprehend President Donald Trump, one must recognize his unique blend of public achievement and personal wealth. His perspective often blurs the line between these two aspects of success.

For Trump, accomplishments aren’t solely about victories in elections, successful negotiations, peace agreements, or landmark legislation. They’re deeply connected to his position within the financial elite.

It’s no overstatement to claim that even during his presidency, Trump measures his life—and the lives of those around him—as much by personal financial gain as by political achievements.

In his view, wealth, status, and historical legacy are inextricably linked. Trump aspires to be remembered as a transformative leader while simultaneously striving to climb the ladder of global wealth rankings. These goals are not in conflict in his mind; to him, they complement each other.

It may come as little surprise then that the financial disclosure documents released on Tuesday, detailing the first year of his second, non-consecutive term, reveal wealth accumulation on a scale unprecedented for a U.S. president.

The sheer scale of Trump’s financial empire has always been unusual for an American president, but what is different is the way his wealth intersects with the powers of the presidency.

The disclosure runs an astonishing 927 pages. The most eye-popping figure comes from cryptocurrency. Trump’s ventures in the digital asset world produced more than $1 billion in income over the past year, helping fuel a breathtaking expansion of his overall fortunes.

The documents, released by the US Office of Government Ethics, read less like the paperwork of a commander-in-chief than the prospectus for a notorious sprawling multinational conglomerate.

Taken together with his portfolio of businesses and investments, the president reported at least $2.2 billion in total income, compared with a minimum of roughly $622 million generated by his enterprises during all of 2024, before he returned to office. Estimates of his net worth likewise surged, rising to roughly $4.7 billion from about $2.3 billion a year earlier.

The crypto boom is only part of the story. Trump also disclosed millions flowing in from an ever-expanding array of branded consumer products. Royalty payments from Trump Watches alone totaled approximately $4.7 million. Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and guitars also generated revenue, while Trump Restaurants – owned through one of the president’s holding companies – reported nearly $2.9 million in food and beverage sales.

The disclosure also underscores how global the Trump business empire has become. Real estate ventures with a Saudi Arabia-based developer – including one involving the Saudi government – have generated tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for Trump and his sons. Additional projects in countries including Vietnam and Romania likewise have added to the family’s earnings.

Some of the most controversial questions arise not from the dollar figures themselves but from the potential overlap between foreign capital and presidential decision-making.

Just days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, an investment firm tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates acquired a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency business co-founded by Trump and his sons, immediately sparking ethics concerns.

Not long afterward, the Emirati government reached an agreement with the Trump administration – despite reported objections from some national security officials –allowing exports of advanced computer chips essential for artificial intelligence.

Even these extraordinary figures do not tell the whole story.

The disclosure does not capture separate business activities pursued by Trump’s sons, including investments in military contractors, prediction-market companies, and businesses seeking billions of dollars in federal assistance to develop critical minerals mining projects. Those ventures could produce substantial future profits for the extended Trump family, even if they do not directly enrich the president himself.

Nor does the filing fully reflect the broader web of family influence surrounding the administration. Jared Kushner continues to serve as one of Trump’s Middle East foreign policy advisers, leading the negotiations with Iran while simultaneously running a private equity firm that has received billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Taken individually, many of these transactions can be explained. Collectively, however, they amount to something modern Washington has never confronted: a sitting president presiding over an extraordinarily active global business network that generates billions of dollars in wealth while simultaneously exercising the immense powers of the presidency.

Whether one views that as entrepreneurial brilliance or an unprecedented ethical challenge, the scope alone is impossible to ignore.

Trump would argue that he has done nothing different than have some previous presidents.

This brings to mind a trait I learned long ago about Trump, which has helped me to understand the behavior and mindset of America’s 45th and 47th president.

Trump, as a scholar of presidential history, knows exactly what each of his predecessors did when it came to exploiting the office for maximum gain and influence.

From the point of view of the Maven of Mar-a-Lago, if a previous president took advantage of an opportunity, Trump can – and should – do the exact same thing. Only more of it. So he’s not a sucker. Or a weakling.

In other words, Trump is determined to catalog every perk and privilege – and supersize it. To him, a quantitative variation of an Oval Office amenity only proves his superior smarts.

Therefore, if John F. Kennedy tapped his brother to serve as his Attorney General to control how the Justice Department operated, Trump can install his personal attorney in the top job to openly call the shots.

If George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney) claimed the importance of ‘unitary executive’ power during times of war, Trump will make executive decisions along those lines and barely bother to explain or justify his actions.

And if past presidents on occasion got richer while in the office (see Johnson, Lyndon Baines, and Biden, Joseph Robinette), Trump will blow past any concerns – ethical, political or optical – while doing the nation’s business. And nearly every president has happily cashed in after leaving office, an entirely different standard to be sure, but occasionally awkward, indecorous, or impolitic nonetheless.

For journalists, it has been difficult to prioritize news coverage of Trump’s alleged double dealing.

To some extent, Trump has a point about the examples set by past presidents and his own shameless indifference to the criticism makes policing his activities something of a fool’s errand.

For the most part, the general public cares little about these appearances of abuses of office. There is genuine outrage on the left, but the realization that rich politicians tend to get richer, especially when that politician is Trump, does not make for a bombshell headline.

As one longtime Trump observer told me, headlines were squandered during his first term on petty complaints about dignitaries and foreign leaders paying to stay in Trump hotels, which only encouraged Trump to shrug and escalate.

Overall, there have been far more urgent items for which to hold this administration accountable to the public interest.

But this latest round of Trump family buckraking has stunned more than a few onlookers, including on the conservative side, out of their slumber.

Even before Tuesday’s disclosure, some conservative voices had had enough. When the New York Times reported that Don, Jr and Eric Trump had teamed up with the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to spearhead a billion-dollar tungsten mining deal with US government financing in Kazakhstan, the New York Post editorial board sounded off. ‘It was bad when the Bidens did it,’ they wrote, ‘and it’s just as bad when the Trumps do it. It would behoove the Trump administration, and the nation as a whole if the president gets ahead of the growing scandal, acts transparently and cleans up the whole mess before it swamps his final two years in office and defines his legacy.’

Some of my MAGA sources are taken aback, even horrified, by these latest reports, considering the deals greedy, unseemly and politically unwise, bad karma and possibly corrupt. Yet none seemed surprised, acknowledging that this is how the Trump family does business.

Former Obama administration official Steve Rattner, a man who well understands the world of billionaires and high finance, says Trump’s net worth nearly tripling in his second term, rising to around that $6.5 billion, makes Trump’s White House ‘the most brazenly self-enriching in American history.’

In response to a request for comment, the White House told the Daily Mail: ‘Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest. President Trump proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world through executive actions, supporting legislation like the GENIUS Act, and other commonsense policies to drive innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans.’

A spokesperson for The Trump Organization said the President’s disclosure demonstrate openness: ‘At nearly 1,000 pages, it represents one of the most comprehensive financial disclosure reports ever submitted and demonstrates a level of financial transparency unmatched in presidential history.’

On Wednesday, President Trump distanced himself from the controversy, telling reporters: ‘I don’t get involved in my personal. We have funds that run my money… They invest my money. I don’t talk to them. I don’t even speak to them.’

Administration denials that there are any conflicts of interest are largely beside the point. No other president has ever garnered such family wealth while on the people’s clock, nor been so cavalier and defiant about it.

Rest assured, there will be copious amounts of investigations by the House and Senate if Democrats take control of one or both chambers after the midterms this November.

Rest assured, also, that Trump and his lawyers will be defiant about those as well, assuming that subpoenas, requests for depositions, document demands and hearings can be slow walked all the way to 2029 when he leaves office.

History may not be kind to the Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff families on this wealth building. But for those families in the business of business, the clock never stops on getting rich and some versions of history easily become lore, stories that burnish the legend rather than tarnishing it.

Donald John Trump can literally not imagine operating any other way.

At just 15 years old, Lulu Gribbin narrowly survived a shark attack off the Florida coast. The encounter tragically cost her a left hand, part of her right leg, and almost her life.

Unbeknownst to Gribbin as she entered the ocean that day in 2024, a shark had bitten another woman just 90 minutes earlier and a mere 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) down the beach. Had she been aware of this earlier incident, she admits she would have stayed out of the water.

Gribbin’s harrowing experience catalyzed the creation of new federal legislation, aimed at enabling emergency alerts to beachgoers’ cell phones if a shark attack occurs nearby.

President Donald Trump recently enacted “Lulu’s Law,” prompting the Federal Communications Commission to permit these life-saving notifications. Championed by Gribbin, the law allows shark attacks to qualify as emergencies that can trigger alerts. Implementation is left to individual states, with Alabama, Gribbin’s home state, having adopted this alert system last year.

“This legislation makes perfect sense,” Gribbin explained. “If a shark attack happens in your vicinity, your phone will receive an alert, much like the Amber Alert system for child abductions.”

Gribbin said she hopes the alert system will help prevent attacks like hers. “I definitely see this law working in the future and I’m really excited to hopefully save lives,” she said.

A fight to survive

Gribbin was one of three people bitten by a shark on June 7, 2024, off the Florida Panhandle.

She was on a mother-daughter trip to the Florida Panhandle. Gribbin said she and her friend had been diving for sand dollars.

“All of the sudden my best friend yelled, ‘Shark!’ and so we all started swimming for our lives,” Gribbin recalled. She said she remembered that sharks are attracted to frantic splashing and yelled for everyone to be calm. Gribbin, who was closest to the shark, was bitten.

“The shark bit off my hand first, and I raised my arm out of the water, and there was just flesh and bone there,” Gribbin said. The shark then latched onto her leg. A man punched the shark off her and strangers on the beach rushed to help. She was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital.

Doctors were able to save the teen’s life but had to amputate part of her right leg.

Choosing positivity throughout her recovery

In the hospital, Gribbin made a deliberate decision to choose joy and to never give up.

She initially struggled knowing, “that I only have two regular limbs, and that my life would be completely different.”

“I would cry, and I would ask my mom, ‘Why is it happening to me?’ And on that day, we put a Bible verse on my bedside table that said, ‘With God, all things are possible.’ And then she told me that what you look like doesn’t define you, it’s who you are on the inside. And so, I think that stuck with me throughout my whole recovery the past two years.

It doesn’t matter what I look like, as long as I’m spreading positivity and inspiring others to stay strong and to never give up,” she said.

Gribbin was fitted with prosthetic limbs, quickly regained her ability to walk, returned to sports and got her driver’s license. She has gone back in the water and learned to surf, meeting Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack.

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, the Alabama Republican who sponsored the legislation, said the legislation happened because of the teen’s “courage, perseverance, and advocacy to protect future beachgoers.”

“Because of her strength, lives will be changed. We should all be inspired by her,” Britt said.

Shark bites remain rare

While sharks are commonly found in the waters off the United States, shark bites are rare, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program.

There are between 60 to 80 known unprovoked bites worldwide each year, he said. It’s extremely rare that two or more people are bit in close proximity. He said in a database of known shark bites, called the International Shark Attack File, there have only been a few instances of multiple bites in a single day.

When that happens, he said it’s likely because of environmental conditions such as sharks following schools of bait fish closer to the shore. Murky water conditions can also be a factor because they increase the chance that a shark will mistake a person for a fish or seal.

In the area where Gribbin was bitten, there are about 20 to 30 bull sharks 1,312 feet (400 meters) offshore at all time, Naylor said. Great white sharks have been spotted more frequently in the chilly waters of New England and Atlantic Canada, according to conservation groups. A smartphone app called Sharktivity also allows shark spotters to report their sightings.

The sightings might unnerve people, but Naylor said it’s important to remember that shark attacks are rare.

“If sharks wanted to eat people, we’d have about 10,000 bites a day. The fact that we have so few is basically testament to the fact that the sharks are doing their level best to avoid people, not to target them,” Naylor said.

Gribbin said she would rather people have the opportunity to get information and make decisions about protecting themselves than to go into the water without knowing.

Another survivor praises the alert system

Braxton Rocha, who was bitten by a large tiger shark off the north shore of the Big Island of Hawaii, said he liked the idea of an alert system. He thinks it is information that people, particularly tourists to the island, will want to know.

Rocha was spearfishing in 2015 when he saw the large shark. “Looked like a bus or submarine. She was the biggest thing I’d seen in the ocean at that time,” Rocha said. He started making his way to shore. When he looked back to check where the shark was, the animal was right in front of him. He tried to push the shark away, but the animal was too big and powerful. It latched onto his leg. Rocha punched it in the nose and the shark let go and swam away.

“Everything happened so fast. It was almost like being struck by lightning. I was still kind of out of it. I looked down and see giant clouds of blood just bursting out of my leg,” he said.

It took nearly 100 staples to repair the gaping wound on his leg. But the experience did not dampen Rocha’s enthusiasm for the ocean and wildlife. “I’ve always loved sharks,” Rocha said.

Two and a half centuries ago, thirteen colonies fought for independence, eventually becoming the founding states of a budding nation. Each state’s history plays a vital role in the story of the United States, making it no surprise that many families are planning to explore these original states as the country marks its 250th anniversary.

However, not all attractions in these states are immediately apparent.

For this reason, we have discovered the most quintessentially American attraction in each of these historic states, perfect for your next travel experience that could only happen in the USA.

Virginia (1607)

In 2010, contractor Howard Hankins faced a demolition task: he was to tear down the towering 20-foot, 22,000-pound busts of presidents like George W. Bush and George Washington, remnants of an unsuccessful presidential park concept. Instead of destroying them, he decided to preserve the statues, transporting them to his own property, which operates officially as an industrial recycling plant.

Known as the President’s Heads, Hankins’ accidental tourist attraction is available for self-guided or guided tours on select weekends throughout the year. Visitors can partake in a Scavenger Hunt featured on the attraction’s website to keep children entertained. Remember to wear durable shoes, as the grounds are often muddy.

Massachusetts (1620)

If you’ve ever eaten in a diner on the East Coast, thank Worcester for the privilege: The city’s Lunch Car Company made more than 650 of them at its factory here, shipped by rail or truck in a single piece to their permanent homes. The local historical museum tells the story in depth, but better to tour some examples of its craft and sample the menus to see how they compare.

The well-preserved 1930s-era Boulevard Diner is a standout that’s open 24 hours from Thursday-Saturday or try the Miss Worcester Diner, a barrel-roofed design right across from the onetime factory.

New Hampshire (1623)

The radical Quakers known as the Shakers split off from mainstream America in the mid 1700s, earning their nickname for their rapture-like services. Since then, they’ve become more famous for the beautifully simple furniture they make to help fund their celibate, communitarian living setups — and one of the best preserved is Canterbury, which dates back to 1792. It’s a 700-acre site with around two dozen original buildings, as well as exhibits on Shaker life and original furniture. (You can pick up modern, locally made takes on the style from woodworker Stephen C. Barlow about an hour’s drive away in Harrisville.)

For the 2026 season, the Village is inviting local and regional visitors to “ReDiscover Canterbury Shaker Village,” featuring new programming, active preservation projects, and fresh experiences for people to rediscover the National Historic Landmark.

Maryland (1634)

The military’s been a mainstay of Annapolis since its founding (including its brief stint as capital of the newly formed United States for a year or so). Come here to see American naval might ats its greatest, via the Yard, that 300-acre or more waterfront campus right next to downtown where you can still watch drills and dress parades from enlistees right on the Chesapeake Harbor. Visit in mid-May for the ultimate experience, when newly minted grads from the academy scale the greased Herndon Monument aka the Plebe Climb in a tradition that dates back to the late 1940s. 

Connecticut (1636)

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn helped shape the idea of American boyhood, so make a pilgrimage to the home of the man who dreamed them up: Mark Twain, whose 25-room Victorian home in Hartford is now run as a non-profit tribute. Book a guided tour to see the restored rooms, as well as documentary on Twain by Ken Burns and an archive of more than 50,000 doodads relating to his life. Don’t walk past the neo-Gothic cottage next door on Forest Street without pausing, either: his neighbor was Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and that’s now a museum to her, too. 

Rhode Island (1636)

Boardwalks, clapboard houses and the crash of the ocean: nowhere epitomizes an all-American summer more perfectly than the classic beach spots Narraganssett and Block Island. Think lobster rolls — grab one to go from Monahan’s Clam Shack by the Sea – plus the chance to bike to grab some ice cream — Nana’s soft serve is right by the town beach.  Hop on a ferry over to Block Island for more dramatic scenery, including rugged bluffs and wide beaches, all of them easily walkable from the harbor.

Delaware (1638)

When the founding fathers cooked up a document they hoped would act as a template for the future of their fledgling country, the first colony to sign up for what became the Constitution was tiny Delaware. It trumpets that bravery via a series of historic sites dubbed First State National Historical Park. It comprises everything from an early courthouse to a Nordic church, built in the 1690s and a nod to the heavy Swedish influence once dominant here, as well as the onetime plantation home of John Dickinson in Dover, a k a, the Penman of the Revolution (so prolific in his writings, he was more like an Independence-era Substacker, hence the nickname)

North Carolina (1663)

When you touch down at Norfolk airport to head to the Outer Banks, remember the Wright Brothers: they came to Kill Devil Hills to pilot their new contraptions (dubbed ‘flying machines’) which hoped to use the winds and soft dunes as ideal lift off and landing spots. The first ever controlled powered flights — lasting up to 59 seconds — took place right here in 1903, and the visitor center recounts the stories in depth. If you can’t fly a private plane, the next best thing in the OBX: kitesurfing, especially round Hatteras Island, where you can lift off for a few moments without an engine.

South Carolina (1670)

Head to Charleston to sample low-country cooking, the regional cuisine that’s a delicious mishmash of the cultures that were brought here, voluntarily or otherwise, after its founding. It was mostly West African chefs cooking for British families who remixed traditional European dishes with ingredients and flavors from Africa to create this cooking tradition.

Spots like Magnolia’s, Poogan’s Porch and Hyman’s Seafood serve up classics like shrimp-powered lowcountry boil, creamy, roe-enriched she-crab soup and the slow-cooked, rice-spiked stew chicken bog.

New York (1664)

It’s a shaky claim that Civil War general Abner Doubleday actually invented baseball in Cooperstown, upstate New York, in 1839 — it’s likely just an evolution of a classic bat and ball game — but embrace the story of the sport with a trip to this Norman Rockwell-ready town.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame on Main Street opened here in 1939 (Babe Ruth was among the first class of inductees) and remains a charming museum slash tribute. Superfans should mark induction weekend as the must-visit time; this year it’s July 24-27. 

New Jersey (1664)

The Jersey shore is the ultimate all-American beach and there’s nowhere more appealing than the kitschy Wildwoods, a trio of towns at its far southern reaches. The towns were built as resorts in the 1950s, and the motels there cartoonishly designed with themes ranging from Polynesia to the Space Age.

There were once 300 or so operating, but now around 50 remain in the historic district, including the tiki-riffing Ala Kai and the restored Caribbean, which features a Tomorrowland-style ramp. One signature detail: the plastic palm trees everywhere, whose fronds are carefully removed for storage over winter. 

Pennsylvania (1682)

Pennsylvania’s early emphasis on public transport deeded it an impressive network of trolley lines; picnic grove-style parks popped up at the end of them to act as lures for weekend getaways.  They soon morphed into full-scale amusement parks, which sat by the roads which replaced those railways, so the state still contains the finest selection of rollercoasters and more dotted in a rough line from east to west. Hit Kennywood, with eight coasters including three dating back to the 1920s, as well as Idlewild, with its steam carousel and Knoebels, with more than 60 rides as well as its own campground. 

Georgia (1732)

The World of Coca Cola is a fountain of pop culture at the heart of downtown Atlanta, a tribute to one of America’s most famous exports. The top-secret formula’s housed in a Vault here, as well as an array of memorabilia that recount its story dating back to the first place it was sold: Jacobs Pharmacy, about a half mile away from this spot. Make sure to head upstairs to Taste It, the Wonka-like area where you can sample beverages the firm sells around the world — and yes, see if you dare try a glug of Beverly, the bitter soda sold in Italy that’s the ultimate challenge.

An incident report recently acquired by our newsroom reveals the last known activities of a South Carolina fitness trainer who vanished mysteriously.

Elena Katherine Moore, aged 39, was discovered deceased nearly a week following her disappearance on June 11. Her last known location was a Planet Fitness gym in Lexington, South Carolina. According to the Lexington County Coroner’s Office, a forensic autopsy performed on June 22 found no evidence of bruises, cuts, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blunt force injuries, strangulation, or other external trauma.

Although the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is still probing into the circumstances surrounding Moore’s death, an incident report accessed by our team provides insight into the timeline of her disappearance.

On June 12, Moore’s husband, Brannon Slice, filed a missing person report with the Lexington Police Department. He informed authorities that she had been discharged from an undisclosed facility on June 11, shortly before 2 p.m. While the specific facility’s name is redacted in the report, Sondra Campbell, a close friend of Moore’s, disclosed to our newsroom that she had been discharged from a mental health facility at that time.

According to the incident report, someone arranged a taxi for Moore after her release, and she asked the driver to stop at a local CVS in Lexington. That stop was the last time the cab driver saw her. When Moore did not return outside, the driver went into the store but was unable to locate her.

Slice told the officer he want to the Planet Fitness where she frequently visited, where an employee told him that Moore singed in at 6:38 p.m. on the 11th. After that, Moore wasn’t seen again and was found dead on June 19.

No one, including her husband, has been accused of any wrongdoing or charged with a crime. Lexington Police Department Inspector Missy Silcox told Newsweek late Tuesday that Slice “is not a person of interest at the current moment.”

Sondra Campbell, who was close friends with Moore, previously told News Media that Moore tried to leave the relationship in the past.

Campbell said that something felt “very different” the last time she saw her on May 31.

“She was scared for her life. She actually said those words to me,” Campbell said. “Elena is one of my best friends. I’ve known her over probably 10 years now. We’re really close like tell each other everything. She’s been that person for me for a long time.”

According to LPD Chief Terrence Green, authorities found the body after getting a tip that led investigators to a new search location.

Moore was last seen walking through the Publix parking lot at 100 Old Cherokee Road in Lexington on the night of June 11.

News Media has reached out to Slice for comment.

Have countless Swifties, alongside the worldwide media and countless Americans overwhelmed by nonstop updates, misconceived the forthcoming Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce nuptials?

For several months, avid journalists, online detectives, and devoted fans have been deciphering clues, unearthing hidden messages, and speculating on when and where this globally renowned pop icon would tie the knot.

Could the event take place at Swift’s lavish estate in Rhode Island? Perhaps in Kelce’s beloved Kansas City? Or maybe Nashville or the picturesque Upstate New York?

The collective predictions kicked off under the assumption that the couple would treat the date and location with utmost confidentiality, sharing details strictly on a need-to-know basis, probably only revealing them post-celebration.

Thus, when headlines suggested that Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden would be the wedding venue, nearly everyone suspected it to be a diversion tactic.

A decoy. Misdirection!

Now, it is confirmed that Swift and Kelce are transforming the iconic NYC arena into a fairy-tale setting of their own design for an event on Friday evening. Could it be that this celebration was never intended to be so secret?

‘They could have a private wedding if they wanted to,’ RoseMarie Terenzio, longtime personal assistant to JFK Jr who helped masterminded the Kennedy’s heir’s famously clandestine wedding to Carolyn Bessette 30 years ago this fall, tells the Daily Mail. ‘My sense is that privacy is not their priority.’

Terenzio knows a few things about confidentiality.

In 1996, she orchestrated the secretive Kennedy-Bessette affair, held on the tiny, secluded Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia. ‘It was very DIY, with no formal wedding planner, just lots of help from Caroline’s friends,’ says Terenzio, author of JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography.

There were no printed invitations. JFK Jr didn’t have a publicist. As a precaution, Terenzio and Bessette Xeroxed the wedding programs themselves, not trusting the task to a professional printer, staying up late one night drinking diet cokes and smoking cigarettes to get the job done.

Terenzio does not claim to know if Swift’s public relations team intentionally planted false rumors of alternate wedding venues, but she certainly did, leaving bogus Ireland honeymoon itineraries around the office of George – the lifestyle magazine founded by JFK Jr’s.

Any nosy reporters or leaky staffers would be sent chasing their tails. And the ruse worked. The day after the wedding the Daily News had a reporter on a flight to Dublin.

Terenzio was so committed to stealth that she didn’t even attend the wedding, knowing that her travel may tip off any journalist who may have been keeping tabs on her.

‘It was small, only 40 people, and [Kennedy and Bessette] really thought about what they wanted before they made the decision. It was a discussion between the two of them and their families and what they wanted to do.’

Three decades on, Terenzio recognizes that Swift’s affair – with its reported 1,000-plus guests – is a horse of a different color.

As Terenzio sees it, the MSG festivities will be less a wedding reception, and more a full-scale Taylor and Travis extravaganza.

‘What better place could there be for the pair than MSG,’ she adds. ‘Sports and music, that’s what MSG is known for.’

And why not? With Forbes now estimating Swift’s net worth at more than $2 billion, she can certainly afford it. And leaning into spectacle, rather than secrecy, allows Taylor to do what she has always done best, engage a fanatic fan base.

‘She understands her fanbase better than anyone. She’s very savvy and there’s a connection there that she’s created and maintained over so many years. They are invested in her.’

The Madison Square Garden event, ‘may even be livestreamed. Maybe it’s a concert, maybe it’s some slideshow of the wedding that has already taken place.’

Yes, floats Terenzio, ‘It’s possible they’re actually already married.’

Despite the barricades obstructed outside of MSG, she suspects that there may be ‘some sort of watch party’ or organized public gathering over the weekend.

Fans were the last thing JFK Jr and Bessette were looking for at their wedding in Georgia. They wanted an interruption-proof, paparazzi-proof, gossip-proof location.

‘They wanted their guests to be invested in keeping their privacy, to feel like they were ‘in on’ keeping the wedding secret,’ Terenzio says.

As a result, there was zero media coverage and no disruptions. Only three official photographs, including an iconic image of JFK Jr kissing Bessette’s hand as they exited the island’s tiny church house.

‘Taylor could have had a private wedding; Taylor could have had any wedding she wanted,’ Terenzio says.

Of course, in the end, the bride gets what she wants.