The actor child of mining tycoon Andrew ‘Twiggy‘ Forrest has lashed out following Donald Trump‘s re-election as US President.
Sophia Forrest, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, shared Vanity Fair’s new cover bearing the image of Trump, 78, to their Instagram stories on Thursday with the caption ‘America you sicken us’.
Alongside a glaring Trump, the cover lists the president-elect’s legal woes including that he was convicted on felony charges related to a hush money payout to adult film star Stormy Daniels and that he still has pending charges over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Sophia’s four-word spray is in sharp contrast to a gushing Instagram post Sophia shared in April 2023 where they smiled from ear to ear while posing for a photograph with ex-US president Barack Obama.
‘When you meet Obama but a little piece of pepper steals the limelight,’ the caption read.
The comment was a light-hearted reference to a fashion faux-pas in the photo where a tiny grain of pepper was seen on Sophia’s teeth.
Sophia’s billionaire Fortescue-founder father was more diplomatic when asked about his views on Trump returning as 47th US President.
He called Trump an ‘economic pragmatist’ when questioned by reporters following Fortescue’s annual general meeting in Perth on Wednesday, hours before TV networks projected Trump would return to the White House.
Forrest said he believed Australia’s key iron exports were on safe footing under a Trump presidency as he was ‘very positive about fossil fuel’ but also that the transition to renewable energy would continue.
Fortescue, under Forrest when he was CEO and now executive chairman, has set its sights of becoming a renewable energy powerhouse in Australia and the US having built a green hydrogen plant in the US state of Arizona and has set up a New York-based renewable investment fund.
‘The biggest surge in investment which the US has had, has of course been renewable energy, so he [Donald Trump] is going to keep that economic engine rolling,’ he said.
Forrest also said the relationship between China, the US and its allies would also be stable under Trump.
‘The biggest trading partner the United States has ever and will ever have is China, let’s not forget that they butter each other’s bread.
‘The amount of horsepower in the tank of China’s economy and their ability to self-stimulate is phenomenal.’
Trump’s election victory not only catapults him back to the White House but grants him a reprieve from looming court battles and soaring legal bills.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is already in talks with Justice Department officials about winding down the two federal cases filed against the newly-elected president, NBC News and CNN reported Wednesday, just hours after Trump’s win.
They said the move was being taken in light of the long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting US president cannot be indicted or criminally prosecuted.
Trump pledged during the election campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris to fire Smith ‘within two seconds’ of taking office.
A US president does not have the authority to dismiss a special counsel, but Trump could name an attorney general who could do so.
He could also have simply ordered the Justice Department to drop the charges.
Smith, who was appointed by Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s attorney general, brought two cases against Trump -for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for mishandling top secret documents after leaving the White House.
The election interference case is ongoing in Washington but no trial date has been set and it has been complicated by the Supreme Court ruling in July that a former president has broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding – the session of Congress called to certify the Biden win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021, by a mob of his supporters.
The Republican is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election.
His documents case was tossed out by a federal judge in Florida, a Trump appointee, on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed.
