Fran Drescher is looking back at Donald Trump’s guest appearance on her show The Nanny – and how he made the request that led to the script changes.
Speaking with Seth Meyers on the Feb. 3 episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, Drescher, 62, revealed that there was “an interesting story” that came with Trump’s appearance on the CBS sitcom, which airs in six seasons from 1993 to 1999.
“I stood in this scene and said to the two of them, ‘Oh, all millionaires are the same,’” Drescher explained of Trump, 73, appearing in 1996.
“And Peter [Marc Jacobson] — who is now my gay ex-husband — got a letter from his assistant, Donald Trump’s assistant, that said, ‘Mr. Trump is not a millionaire. He’s a billionaire and we want you to flip the script,’” Drescher explained.
The sitcom star shared a similar story during an appearance on PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing.
Fran Drescher is bringing The Nanny to Broadway as a musical with a script by Rachel Bloom
But the debt-ridden star said she thought the use of the word “billionaire” “seemed too appropriate.”
“Because I knew Fran would describe all rich people as millionaires,” she said of her character on the show, Fran Fine. “But saying ‘billionaire’ seems like a concrete choice.”
“So we asked them if it was okay if we wrote ‘zillionaire’ and he said that was okay,” she told Meyers with a laugh.
Drescher added, “And somehow Peter knew he shouldn’t throw it away and he framed it in his office.”
Last month, Drescher and Jacobson announced that an adaptation of The Nanny would head to Broadway for a musical adaptation with the help of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom, who will write the music with Adam Schlesinger.
“We are thrilled to be making the Broadway musical The Nanny,” Drescher and Jacobson said in a statement PEOPLE obtained in January. “We are equally excited that the talented Rachel Bloom will write the lyrics. and music with the wonderful Adam Schlesinger, and with excellent direction by Marc Bruni.”
“No one has been cast yet – we are planning – but we feel confident that we will find a wonderful actress who is funny, charming and has a great voice,” the statement continued. continued, and Drescher added, “Of course I would do it myself. But we’ll have to change the title to The Granny.”
Drescher teased last April that she and her ex-husband were collaborating with Bloom on “something that I think fans of The Nanny will be very excited about. It has something to do with the Nanny.”
The actress previously said she was “absolutely bummed” about working on the sitcom’s revival.
“I don’t know what’s going on with some of the networks out there because they don’t seem to grasp the fact that there is an obsession among young people with shows and moi!” she told PeopleTV’s Chatter in October 2018
