Why were Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at Hugh Jackman’s birthday party?

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Once Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hitched their careers and reputations to the controversial presidency of Donald Trump, they reportedly began to lose friends among the so-called liberal elite in Hollywood and in Manhattan high society.

That includes friends who were guests at their lavish 2009 wedding at President Trump’s New Jersey golf resort: Vogue editor Anna Wintour and actresses Emmy Rossum and Natalie Portman.

It’s hard to imagine Wintour, who supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, wanting to deal with the optics of having Ivanka Trump and Kushner back at any future Met Gala — even though Wintour once was friendly with the Trump family and reportedly asked Ivanka Trump to come work for her at Vogue. Meanwhile, Emmy Rossum has been a vehement critic of Trump’s rhetoric and policies, as well as a target of anti-Semitic threats coming at her from Trump supporters.

During an interview with Stephen Colbert in July, Academy Award winner Portman said she and Kushner, her 2003 Harvard classmate, were no longer in contact. She also called Kushner “a super villain” for being loyal to Trump and for working as a senior advisor in his White House.

But it looks like at least one of Ivanka and Jared’s celebrity wedding guests has stayed loyal. That’s Hugh Jackman.

In fact, the Australian film and Broadway star recently had Ivanka Trump and Kushner as guests to his star-studded 50th birthday party, according to Page Six.

The party was held at the West Village offices of Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation. Page Six added that other guests included Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett. Some “liberal types” were taken aback by the presence of the president’s daughter and son-in-law at the event, Page Six reported. But a source told the column, “There was no snubbing. Everyone was polite.”

Jackman is busy these days promoting his new film “The Frontrunner,” in which he plays Gary Hart, the Democratic senator whose presidential hopes were destroyed in 1987 by allegations of an extramarital affair.

In the meantime, Jackman has been celebrating turning the big 5-0, and he and his wife Deborra-lee Furness did so with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, two of today’s most divisive figures in American politics.

His friendship with Ivanka Trump goes “way back,” according to Cosmopolitan. They got to know each other through their mutual friend Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Jackman and Kidman also are godparents to Deng’s children with Murdoch, Cosmopolitan added.

The “Logan” star walked the red carpet at the 2011 opening of the Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry boutique in New York City, JustJared.com reported. (Ivanka Trump’s fine jewelry line was discontinued in 2017, the same year it was linked in a lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, to an alleged multimillion-dollar money laundering and fraud scheme, GQ reported.)

In 2015, Jackman tweeted out a tribute to his “lovely friend” Ivanka Trump, sharing what appeared to be a blurry photo of Donald Trump’s reported favorite child in a hotel bathrobe, looking forward to a romantic weekend with her husband.

The friendship appears to have survived the brutal 2016 election when many celebrities denounced Trump for rhetoric they found to be racist and sexist. As it happens, Jackman showed his support for Clinton, not Trump, by performing with other Broadway stars at the Stronger Together event which raised a reported $2 million for her campaign, Playbill reported.

Since Trump took office, suspicion of Ivanka Trump has grown. Critics have accused her of being being insensitive, tone-deaf and “complicit” in the Trump administration’s rhetoric and policies, which they say are racist, sexist, homophobic, cruel, corrupt and anti-democratic. On his own, Kushner has recently come under fire for his friendly relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been implicated in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

More recently, Ivanka Trump also has faced increasing scrutiny over her business dealings when she worked as a vice president for her father’s Trump Organization.

A sweeping investigation, published this month by ProPublica and WNYC, alleges that Ivanka Trump engaged in misleading and potentially fraudulent business practices by promoting false sales figures about Trump Organization properties in four different countries over the last decade.

The report showed that many of the Trump Organization’s international deals — in which Ivanka Trump had a role — “bore the hallmarks of financial fraud, including money laundering, deceptive borrowing, outright lying to investors, and other potential crimes,” the New Yorker reported.

On Monday, news came that a new lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, is accusing President Trump and his three oldest children, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, of endorsing sham businesses — the telecommunications marketing company ACN, the vitamin-marketing company Trump Network, and the real-estate advice company Trump Institute — that actually were “get-rich-quick schemes,” the New York Times reported.

Jackman and his wife Furness apparently haven’t been bothered by such negative reports about their friends Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

In June, Jackman and Furness were seen with Ivanka Trump at their Greenwich Village apartment, saying good-bye as she walked out the door, the Daily Mail reported.

And now they’ve had Ivanka Trump as their guests to Jackman’s party, Page Six reported.

Some will say that politics shouldn’t get in the way of friendships, and will commend Jackman and his wife for staying loyal. But others will be disappointed that a favorite star like Jackman is keeping such company:

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