Women's Rights & Issues

niyad

(119,931 posts) Sat Jan 6, 2024, 04:34 PM Jan 2024

A Timeline of Donald Trump's Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe

A Timeline of Donald Trump’s Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe
From walking into a teen dressing room to joking about his obligation to sleep with contestants, Trump's a storied pageant creep
October 12, 2016
A Timeline of the Creepy Things Trump Said/Did While He Owned Miss Universe

Donald Trump with 51 Miss USA contestants and 20 former Miss Universes in 2006. Curtis/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock (I can't get a link to this incredibly creepy video)

Donald Trump was forced to sell the Miss Universe Organization – which also includes sister scholarship programs Miss USA and Miss Teen USA – in 2015 after his incendiary comments about Mexicans drove away broadcasters NBC and Univision. But Trump owned the pageant for nearly two decades, during which time he would have had the opportunity to come into contact with nearly 4,000 beauty queens. On the heels of the damaging videotape on which Trump and former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush salivated over Days of Our Live actress Arianne Zucker, and joked about sexually assaulting women, came allegations that Trump entered the Miss Teen USA changing room where girls as young as 15 were in various states of undress.

Mariah Billado, Miss Teen Vermont 1997 told BuzzFeed, “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here.'” Three other teenage contestants from the same year confirmed the story. The former pageant contestants discussed their memories of the incident after former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told Los Angeles’ CBS affiliate that Trump entered the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 when she was a contestant. “He just came strolling right in,” Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.” Dixon went on to say that employees of the Miss Universe Organization encouraged the contestants to lavish Trump with attention when he came in. “To have the owner come waltzing in, when we’re naked, or half-naked, in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention…”

. . . . .

His position as the pageant’s owner entitled him to that kind of access, Trump explained, seemingly aware that what he was doing made the women uncomfortable. “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said. (Billado told BuzzFeed she mentioned the incident to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who shrugged it off, saying, “Yeah, he does that.”)

Here are other “highlights” from Trump’s storied history as a pageant creep.

Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado (L), 19, from the hometown of Maracay, won the 1996 Miss Universe Crown late 17 May in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1996
When he bought the Miss Universe pageant family, Trump told Stern in 2005, the pageant was “a sick puppy.” The relative hotness of contestants had seriously deteriorated in the preceding years, he explained to Stern, because the judges had begun placing a greater emphasis on brains over beauty. “They had a person that was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t interested.” The first Miss Universe crowned on Trump’s watch was Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado. Hillary Clinton famously invoked Trump’s treatment of Machado during the first presidential debate. Machado remembers him calling her “Miss Piggy” because she gained weight and “Miss Housekeeping” because she’s Latina. Trump invited reporters to observe Machado exercising, against her protests. She told The New York Times earlier this year, “I was about to cry in that moment with all the cameras there. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, Mr. Trump.’ He said, ‘I don’t care.'”
. . . .

Donald Trump places a ribbon on Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during a press conference at Trump Tower May 12, 2009 in New York.

. . . . .

2015
The 2015 Miss USA pageant was set to take place the first week of July – three weeks after Trump characterized Mexicans as rapists and criminals during his campaign kick-off event. One by one, the pageant’s hosts, judges, sponsors, and broadcasters dropped out. Trump was forced to sell the pageants to WME in September 2015. Update, October 13th, 10:30 a.m. ET: The Trump campaign issued a statement to Rolling Stone categorically denying these allegations and questioning the political motivation behind reporting on them, adding, “Mr. Trump has a fantastic record of empowering women throughout his career, and a more accurate story would be to show how he’s been a positive influence in the lives of so many.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/