New York Daily News

LET THEM EAT CAKE!

Mom battles Trump team’s Marie Antoinette Cabinet wife sorry for snotty boast & rant

- BY NANCY DILLON, JASON SILVERSTEI­N, JESSICA CHIA and DENIS SLATTERY

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s wife, Louise Linton (right), who played a “CSI: NY” character dressed as Marie Antoinette, responded with regal outrage when Oregon mom Jenni Miller (top) criticized Instagram post bragging on her luxe lifestyle.

TREASURY SECRETARY Steven Mnuchin’s out-of-touch aspiring actress wife went from “let them eat cake” to eating her own humble pie. Louise Linton apologized on Tuesday for bragging about her wealth, berating an Oregon woman and insinuatin­g she was better than others due to her wealth.

Linton’s snobbery sparked outrage and comparison­s to Marie Antoinette after she scolded and poor-shamed the working mother of three in an online meltdown and told her that her “life looks cute.”

The object of Linton’s scorn, 44-year-old Jenni Miller, told the Daily News she had trouble sleeping after Linton’s “incredibly condescend­ing” post, but “hopes she thinks before she posts in the future. I will do the same.”

Linton’s high-and-mighty moment began on Monday with a fashion-fixated Instagram post that showed her stepping off a government plane alongside her former hedge funder husband in Kentucky.

The Scottish-born blond — dressed in all white and carrying a large handbag — tagged a series of high-end fashion designers including Hermes, Roland Mouret, Tom Ford and Valentino.

Miller said she found the post inappropri­ate and called Linton out.

“Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable,” she commented on the picture.

That jab prompted a lengthy response from the 36-year-old Linton, who boasted about the taxes she pays and the “self-sacrifice” she makes to the country.

“cute! .... Aw!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable! Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol,” she wrote.

“Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day “trip” than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours,” the diatribe continued.

Without even a note of irony, she then called Miller “adorably out of touch.”

Linton ended by urging Miller to “go chill out” and watch the new “Game of Thrones.”

Miller said by the time someone alerted her to the tirade, the aspiring actress had made her Instagram account private.

“I couldn’t believe she went off the rails with such a long comment to my silly message,” Miller told The News.

She added that Linton herself defined “out of touch” when she bragged about her high-end clothing while visiting “one of the poorest states in the country.” “It was incredibly condescend­ing,” Miller said. Linton, while not exactly a household name, has notched small roles in almost a dozen films, including bit parts in “Crew 2 Crew,” “The Echo” and “Rules Don’t Apply,” which was co-produced by Mnuchin.

She had a few speaking lines in an episode of “Cold Case” and once even played a character who dressed as Antoinette for an episode of “CSI: NY.” Linton is also no stranger to courting controvers­y. Last year she was ridiculed for self-publishing a memoir about the time she spent in Zambia before coming to the U.S. for college. The book, titled “In Congo’s Shadow: One girl’s perilous journey to the heart of Africa,” was pulled from Amazon almost as soon as it went on sale. Linton’s account of her time in one of Africa’s most stable countries was viewed as a “demeaning, inaccurate ‘jungle narrative’ riddled with inaccuraci­es and racist tropes,” according to Quartz Africa. Linton, who deleted her Twitter account after the memoir kerfuffle, changed her Instagram settings to private and later issued a two-line mea culpa on Tuesday. “I apologize for my post on social media yesterday as well as my response,” she said in a statement. “It was inappropri­ate and highly insensitiv­e.” Miller, meanwhile, is hoping to make the best of her sudden time in the spotlight. “I know news cycles are short, and this will all be forgotten in the next day or two, so I thought, ‘What can I do to make something good out of this?’ ” She decided to post the fund-raising page for a family friend who recently suffered a devastatin­g stroke, and of course she tagged Linton. The plan worked, quickly generating $1,000 in new contributi­ons, she said. Her friend, Marty Anderson, is a 49-year-old dad who spent nine days in a hospital ICU after suffering a hemorrhagi­c stroke at work on May 11, according to his YouCaring.com page. “He just got really bad news,” Miller said. “His insurance is refusing to pay for him to go to the inpatient rehab where his doctors say he needs to go to have the best chance of walking again.” Miller said she “did the math” and believes the cost of Linton’s luxury Hermès handbag alone could pay for half of Anderson’s recommende­d three-week stay. Hermès bags can sell for $10,000 up to $150,000, according to Vanity Fair. She said she hasn’t heard from Linton herself. “I don’t believe she has tried to reach me because I’m at work. However, I am glad that she seems to realize that she was insensitiv­e,” she said.

While Linton ostentatio­usly characteri­zed her travels to Kentucky as a “day trip” in her post, her husband was there to conduct business.

Mnuchin, 54, was in Louisville, meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss tax reform.

A Treasury spokesman said Mnuchin and Linton are reimbursin­g the government for Linton’s travel and that Linton received no kickbacks from the fashion labels mentioned in her post.

The couple married in June. The D.C. ceremony was attended by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump as well as several other administra­tion officials. Vice President Pence officiated at the wedding.

Shortly before their nuptials, the couple faced criticism after Linton announced on her Facebook page that she would become the new CEO of Dune Entertainm­ent, replacing her husband.

Mnuchin said he was divesting from the film company, along with Ratpac-Dune, which he helped found, upon appointmen­t.

But the appointmen­t of his fiancée was seen as a conflict in and of itself, and late last month, Linton agreed to step down after Senate Finance Committee member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) questioned the ethics of her position.

Mnuchin, estimated to be worth upward of $300 million, worked at Goldman Sachs before entering the movie business.

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