Donald Trump said during a presidential debate that his "locker-room talk" was all talk, but multiple women have since come forward to say he was lying.
Moderator Anderson Cooper asked during the debate whether Trump had done the things he talked about in a leaked audio tape from 2005, in which the Republican nominee for president graphically described what he believed are entitlements of celebrity he has over women, namely that you can "grab them by the pussy." He told Billy Bush, then host of Access Hollywood, "When you're a star, they let you do it." Trump apologized in a videotaped mea culpa that aired Friday night on CNN. "Anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who I am," he said, dismissing them as the kind of things men talk about in private.
Multiple women, however, have come forward to allege that Trump has done exactly what he described on the tape -- touching them without their consent. The Advocate will update this list as more women come forward.
Kristin Anderson Says Trump Sent His Hand Up Her Skirt
A woman tells the Washington Post that she was at a New York nightclub, when a man sitting next to her suddenly and without ever exchanging words reached up her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear. It was Donald Trump, she says. The woman, Kristin Anderson, says it happened in the early '90s. She was contacted by the Washington Post, which was tipped about her story. "I talked to someone who heard it from her in 2007," said reporter Karen Tumulty on MSNBC, "but she did not come to the Washington Post. We heard about her story through a third-party, we approached her, and she really hesitated." The Access Hollywood video sparked the tip, Tumulty says, because Trump brags about the very behavior this woman says happened to her ("Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything"). Even though the woman didn't come forward on her own, w Trump spokesperson dismissed the story, telling the Post that this is "someone looking to get some free publicity." Watch Anderson in her own words:
Former Apprentice Contestant Says She Was Assaulted in Hotel Room
A former contestant on The Apprentice, Summer Zervos, said in a news conference broadcast on MSNBC that Donald Trump had dangled the prospect of a job with his organization, then sexually assaulted her. Trump first invited Zervos to meet in his office in New York, she said. "When I arrived, he kissed me on the lips," she remembered, describing what several other women say they've experienced. Then Trump kissed her on the lips again when leaving, which prompted Zervos to call her family. They convinced themselves "this was undoubtedly some form of greeting and I should not take it as anything more than that." Trump invited Zervos to dinner when visiting California, where she lived, but she found herself instead in a hotel room. She arrived and Trump's clothes were on the bed. She imitated Trump calling playfully "Hellooo" from somewhere unseen. She waited in another room until Trump appeared, wearing the suit that had been on the bed. Trump asked her to sit next to him, she did, and he began kissing her and touching her breasts. She repeatedly told him not to, and he repeatedly tried, with Zervos even pushing against his chest, she told reporters. Throughout the ordeal, Zervos said she still thought she might get a job and that the advances had been "a test."
Temple Taggart McDowell Says Trump Met Her and Kissed Her on Mouth
A former Miss USA contestant from Utah told NBC News that when she met Donald Trump, she expected a handshake and instead got a kiss on the lips. "It was at that time that he turned to me and embraced me and gave me a kiss on the lips," she said. McDowell said she tried to ignore it and move on, then it happened again the next time she met Trump in New York. "I remember feeling kind of embarrassed, like wanting to turn and wipe my mouth, like, 'What just happened?'" she said. While Trump says claims by women against him are "preposterous," he actually bragged in the Access Hollywood tape of this exact kind of behavior. "You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them," he was recorded telling then-host Billy Bush. "It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." Taggart first told her story to The New York Times back in May.
Jane Doe Says Trump Raped Her
The Guardianreports that Donald Trump has a court date to face a woman who says she was raped by the billionaire in 1994, when she was only 13. Trump or his representatives won't be in a Manhattan court until December 16, when a judge scheduled a status conference in the civil lawsuit, filed back in June. The case hasn't gotten a lot of attention, in part because, The Guardianreports, it is linked to a publicist who has tried to sell the story for $1 million. Jezebelreported extensively on being pitched the story. Details of what happened to this woman have not been divulged outside of legal proceedings, except to say she accuses Trump of rape. His representatives have called the accusations in the lawsuit "categorically false."
Jill Harth Says Trump Attempted to Rape Her
A makeup artist filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump in 1997, accusing him of cornering her in the bedroom of his daughter Ivanka, then forcibly kissing and groping her. The lawsuit called it an "attempted rape." Harth said Trump first groped her while at dinner with a number of beauty pageant contestants, grabbing her with his hand under the table. She accuses Trump of going further back at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate and club. "He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again," Harth toldThe Guardian in New York, "and I had to physically say: 'What are you doing? Stop it.'" Trump has denied this vigorously, and he dispatched his daughter to CBS This Morning to also deny it.
Mindy McGillivray Says Trump Grabbed Her
Mindy McGillivray, now 36, was the assistant on a photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago in 2003. Ken Davidoff, the photographer for the event, told the The Palm Beach Postthat McGillivray was indignant after being manhandled by Trump. "Donald just grabbed my ass!" he recalled her saying.
Cassandra Searles Says Trump Also Grabbed Her Butt
Former Miss Washington Cassandra Searles recalls Trump visiting the Miss USA pageant in 2013, requiring the women to look him in the eye as they practiced their introductions. "He probably doesn't want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room," she said on Facebook, according to a Rolling Stonereport.
Jessica Leeds Says She Was Groped on an Airplane
Jessica Leeds, who was seated next to Trump on a first-class flight in the 1980s, says that the billionaire businessman put his hand up her skirt. Leeds, a representative for a paper company, was traveling for work. The woman, who is now 74, claimed that she had to request to moved all the way to the back of the airplane to get away from his continued groping. "He was like an octopus," she told The New York Times. "His hands were everywhere."
Rachel Crooks Says Trump Forcibly Kissed Her
Rachel Crooks, then just 22, says she shared an elevator with the CEO in New York's Trump Tower. She worked for Bayrock Group, a real estate firm that has office space in the building. Knowing that her firm had a professional relationship with Trump, Crooks made an introduction, but a casual greeting quickly turned into a nightmare when he refused to release her from the handshake. He allegedly kissed her on the mouth and wouldn't let go. "It was so inappropriate," Crooks told the Times. "I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that."
Natasha Stoynoff Says Trump Pushed Her Against a Wall and Kissed Her
The most graphic account, though, comes from Natasha Stoynoff, formerly a writer for People magazine. Stoynoff, who was assigned to the "Trump Beat" in the early 2000s, claimed that the businessman cornered her while she was working on a cover story about the pregnancy of his wife, Melania. Trump claimed that he wanted to show Stoynoff a "tremendous" room on his Florida estate and used the tour as ruse to get her alone.
"Trump shut the door behind us," she writes in a commentary for the lifestyle magazine. "I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat. ... He was fast, taking me by surprise and throwing me off balance. I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump's longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself."
When Trump accompanied Stoynoff downstairs to interview his wife, the CEO bluntly informed her that the two were going to have an affair.
"I'm not sure what locker room talk consists of these days," Stoynoff concludes. "I only know that I wasn't in a locker room when he pushed me against a wall. I was in his home, as a professional, and his beautiful pregnant wife was just upstairs."
It wouldn't be the first time that Trump had tried to make advances on a reporter covering him. The chief national correspondent for Yahoo News, Lisa Belkin, wrote about Trump making a pass at her while she was writing for The New York Times in the 1980s.
Karena Virginia, Yoga Instructor, Says Trump Groped Her Breast
Karena Virginia says she was waiting for a car to pick her up after the U.S. Open in 1998 when Trump came up to her and groped her breast.
She overheard Trump talking to a group of men about her body. "As I was waiting, Donald Trump approached me. I knew who he was, but I had never met him," said Virginia, a yoga instructor and life coach, Thursday at a press conference. "He was with a few other men. I was quite surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me. He said, 'Hey, look at this one. We haven't seen her before.'"
"'Look at those legs,' as though I was an object, rather than a person," said Virginia. "He then walked up to me and reached [with] his right arm and grabbed my right arm. Then his hand touched the inside of my breast. I was in shock. I flinched." According to Virginia, Trump then said, "Don't you know who I am?"
The yoga instructor said she ran into Trump again five years later, and he kept looking her up and down. "I had come to the realization that I was the victim," she said. Though the revelation came at a press conference with the lawyer, Gloria Allred, Virginia said she has no plans to press charges.
NICO LANG and YEZMIN VILLARREAL contributed to this report.
