Yet another embarrassment for Donald Trump. This time it's not his sexual assault comments, or him getting crushed in the polls, or him forgetting when the election is. No, this time there's even more information about Trump creeping on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing room while they were naked.
If you've missed this Trump scandal while you were distracted by all the other Trump controversies, here's some background: Earlier this week, CNN published audio of Trump bragging to Howard Stern about going backstage at the pageants he owned while the contestants ("these incredible looking women") were "standing there with no clothes." He boasted that "I sort of get away with things like that" because "I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it."
The audio came months after former Miss New Hampshire Bridget Sullivan told BuzzFeed News last spring that Trump strolled through the dressing rooms to stare at the contestants. At the time, the Trump campaign dismissed the allegations as "totally false," and now, of course, he's on record bragging about the very actions he previously denied.
Now, more people are coming forward to expose just how creepy Trump's behavior was.
CBS 2 Los Angeles talked to Tasha Dixon, who was Miss Arizona in 2001 at the age of 18. She corroborated Trump's creepy boasts, saying Trump would "come waltzing in when we were naked or half naked in a very physically vulnerable position." The first time they met Trump, Dixon said, the contestants were at the dress rehearsal changing into their bikinis. As they were changing, Trump "just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything." If that's not creepy enough, Dixon said that contestants also had to deal with "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." Dixon is convinced, "Donald Trump owned the pageant for the reasons to utilize his power to get around beautiful women."
On Wednesday, BuzzFeed News reported that four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA also confirmed that Trump would creep around the dressing room while the contestants, including some as young as 15 years old, were changing. The report is the first time Trump's alleged behavior went beyond the adult pageants to include the teen show, which allows contestants between age 14 and 19 years old.
Three of the women spoke anonymously, but former Miss Vermont Teen USA Mariah Billado recalled to BuzzFeed News that when the contestants were alarmed by Trump's presence in the dressing room, he said, "Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before." One of the women called it "shocking" and "creepy." Another woman, who was 17 at the time, says that now "as an adult and as a mother" she thinks the whole thing was "absolutely inappropriate."
Billado said that, when she told Trump's daughter about the incident, Ivanka replied, "Yeah, he does that."
Previously, Trump has said that when he met then-12-year-old Paris Hilton, he "wasn't interested" but the pre-teen "was beautiful."
