President Donald Trump touted the opulence of his residence on the top floors of midtown Manhattan's Trump Tower long before he called the White House home. But now, it's clear that at least some of his claims about his lavish New York City penthouse were embellished.
During his campaign, then-candidate Trump took Forbes on an exclusive tour of his Trump Tower home, claiming that the penthouse spanned the entirety of three floors, consisted of 33,000 square feet of space, and was worth at least $200 million. But Forbes has unearthed public records that seem to disprove many of Trump's claims about the residence.
According to those documents, Trump actually shares his three floors with a neighbor, and the actual space his apartment occupies is about a third of the square footage he provided, totaling 10,996 square feet. Forbes notes that Trump did say that he used to have a rather famous floor-mate in the late Michael Jackson, though records indicate that the King of Pop actually lived a few floors away. The space Trump claims Jackson occupied is used only for mechanical purposes.
The President may be pulling his inflated square footage number from shared spaces of the building, Forbes reports. "Instead, 'common elements'—things like hallways and elevators—and mechanical space appear to take up the rest of the area Trump claims to live in," the magazine's report reads. "The residents of Trump Tower likely own these areas through their condo association, their stakes divvied up based on the size of their apartments."
The publication also estimates that Trump's penthouse is actually worth around $64 million, a far cry from the $200 million price tag he spoke of.
Donald Trump's camp declined to comment on any part of Forbes' latest report.
