Alicia Machado fires back at Trump’s ‘campaign of hate’

Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado punched back on Friday after Donald Trump attacked her in a 5 a.m. Twitter rant.

Among other things, the Republican presidential nominee called Machado “disgusting,” said she had a “terrible” history and urged the public to “check out [her] sex tape and past.”

Machado took to Instagram later in the day to accuse Trump of “making attacks, insults and trying to revive defamations and false accusations about my life. All of this with the goal of intimidating me, humiliating me, and throwing me off balance one more time. The attacks that have surged are slander and cheap lies.” She made her comments in Spanish, which were translated by Yahoo News.

She also said: “This, of course, is not the first time that I was confronted with a situation like this. Through his campaign of hate, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman. This is definitely one of his most frightening characteristics. With this, he’s taking attention away from his real problems and his inability to pretend to be the leader of a great country.”

Machado, now a high-profile actress in Latin America, was Miss Venezuela when Trump took over the beauty pageant about 20 years ago, and she was crowned Miss Universe in 1996. After she gained weight, Trump called a press conference and invited reporters to watch her work out. During this year’s election campaign, she said she had been blindsided by the press conference and further accused Trump of calling her “Miss Piggy,” “fat” and “ugly” in private.

During Monday’s presidential debate, Democrat Hillary Clinton brought up Trump’s weight-shaming comments in order to argue that the celebrity businessman has a clear pattern of sexism. “Donald, she has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado. And she has become a U.S. citizen. And you can bet she is going to vote this November,” Clinton said in the closing minutes of the debate. (In his Friday morning tweets, Trump asked, “Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting … Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?”)

“When I was just a little girl, and now as a candidate, he humiliated me, he insulted me, he disrespected me publicly — as he normally did privately in an even more cruel way,” Machado wrote on her Friday Instagram response to Trump. “This is how this was for me and it’s clear over many years that this is actions and conduct he’s repeated with other women for decades. Therefore, I will stay standing, sharing my story, my absolute support for Mrs. Clinton in the name of women, of my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends, and the female community.”

Her Instagram post in full:

“El candidato republicano y su equipo de campa?a nuevamente están generando ataques, insultos e intentando revivir difamaciones y falsas acusaciones sobre mi vida. Todo eso con la finalidad de intimidarme, humillarme y desequilibrarme una vez más. Los ataques que han surgido son calumnias y mentiras baratas generadas con malas intenciones, que no tienen fundamento que han sido difundidas por medios amarillistas. ésta, por supuesto, no es la primera vez que enfrento una situación así. Por medio de su campa?a de odio, el candidato republicano insiste en desacreditar y desmoralizar a una mujer, lo que definitivamente es una de sus características más aterradoras. Con esto, busca distraer la atención de sus reales problemas y de su incapacidad para pretender ser el líder de este gran país. Cuando era apenas una jovencita, el ahora candidato, me humilló, me insultó, me irrespetó públicamente, como lo hacía usualmente de forma privada de la forma más cruel. Así como esto me pasó a mí, es claro a través de los a?os, que sus acciones y conductas se han repetido con otras mujeres durante décadas. Por lo tanto, seguiré de pie, compartiendo mi historia, mi apoyo absoluto a la se?ora Clinton en nombre de las mujeres, de mis hermanas, tías, abuelas, primas, amigas y la comunidad femenina. A mis latinas y en general, quiero agradecerles todo el apoyo, el amor y el respeto, a mi carrera, a mi persona como ser humano y a mi familia. Yo me hice ciudadana de este gran país porque aquí nació mi hija y porque quería ejercer todos mis derechos, entre ellos votar. Continuaré de pie, firme en mi experiencia vivida como Miss Universo y ustedes conmigo apoyándome. He estado tan complacida por tantas palabras amables, por tanto amor. Yo estoy centrándome en mi ocupada carrera, en mi labor de madre y voy a seguir dando pasos positivos para la comunidad latina, seguiré como activista en pro de los derechos de la mujer y el respeto que nos merecemos. Aprecio todo su amor y todo su apoyo nuevamente, gracias”. Miles de bendiciones.

A photo posted by Alicia Machado (@machadooficial) on Sep 30, 2016 at 7:25am PDT

Clinton also responded to Trump’s Twitter flurry with a series of her own tweets:

Hunter Walker contributed to this story.

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