While many Donald Trump fans experienced the loss of personal relationships due to their support of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, some high-profile figures have lost their ability to earn a living in their chosen field.
That appears to have been the case for Elizabeth Pipko, a bikini model whose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Maxim, and Esquire, among other publications.
But since she became the latest outspoken Trump supporter, she said there has been an obvious professional cost.
As New York Post reported:
She said she has been modeling since she was 17, when she signed with the powerhouse agency Wilhelmina, leading to racy features in Maxim, Esquire and Sports Illustrated.
She is also a model of moxie – proudly baring it all and coming out of the fashion closet as a Trump supporter in 2019, eventually damaging her career in a left-leaning industry.
“I lost everything – all of my connections,” including agents, bookers, photographers and friends, Pipko said.
She said that after finding her way back into the industry, she can’t decide which is more cutthroat: modeling or politics.
ADVERTISEMENT“I tell people my modeling career prepared me for politics, as they’re both equally brutal,” Pipko said, noting that those with sharp cheekbones and even sharper elbows in modeling groomed her for the political swamp. “Every world I’ve been in is cutthroat.”
She worked her way up from being a Trump campaign volunteer to paid aide during his successful 2016 run, then moved on to political activism as a founder of Exodus Movement, a PAC fighting antisemitism.
The model got married at Mar-a-Lago in December 2018 to Darren Centinello, who she met on the 2016 Trump campaign. Centinello currently works for the Trump campaign.
Meet Elizabeth Pipko, the MAGA-loving bikini model who’s the GOP’s sexiest new spokeswoman https://t.co/JfFUlI8PuI pic.twitter.com/GuUicRpXDs
— New York Post (@nypost) May 6, 2024
Her admission came as actress Drea de Matteo, who starred on “The Sopranos,” has become more outspoken about her own shift toward conservatism and the toll such views can have on celebrities.
Drea de Matteo to Don Jr: “I’m just so liberal that I’m a conservative at this point.”
pic.twitter.com/QzI6I0jFiC— 💋🇺🇸 Country Over Party🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@gagirlpolitics) April 29, 2024
Drea de Matteo @dreadematteo to @DonaldJTrumpJr: "Hollywood is hijacked." pic.twitter.com/KnxKQ9k1Tj
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 29, 2024
For her part, Pipko’s support for Trump dates back to his first White House bid and led to her encounter with the man who has since become her husband.
As the Times of Israel reported in 2019:
It’s a family affair: The 24-year-old Pipko met her husband, Darren Centinello, while working on Trump’s 2016 campaign in New York City. Soon after, the two were married at the president’s famous Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
ADVERTISEMENTCentinello is currently the director of social media strategy for Trump’s 2020 run, while Pipko travels across the nation, speaking to different Jewish groups to raise support.
The Times of Israel spoke with Pipko from the road via telephone earlier this month, discussing life for her before and after the Exodus Movement took off. The soft-spoken Pipko seldom raised her voice, even when describing anti-Semitic incidents against her. Choosing each word carefully, she broke down the various parts of her multifaceted life as the face of a new movement, a model, and former figure skater.
Here’s an interview in which she recounted her trajectory from model to Trump surrogate:
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