The women who have accused Donald Trump
Donald Trump said during the second presidential debate that his bragging about kissing and touching women without their consent — caught on a hot mic in an explosive 2005 video — was “locker-room talk” and that he never actually groped anyone.
“No, I have not,” Trump told Anderson Cooper, the debate’s co-moderator.
Since then, 13 women have come forward alleging they were inappropriately touched by the Republican nominee in separate incidents dating back to the early 1970s. Three other women have had their past claims resurfaced in light of Trump’s alleged transgressions.
Here are the names of each of the women and a summary of their allegations. Trump has denied all of them, claiming their stories are part of a media conspiracy spearheaded by the Hillary Clinton campaign. The real estate mogul has also suggested that some of the women aren’t attractive enough for him — and has threatened to sue them after the election.
Jessica Leeds
Leeds told the New York Times that in the early 1980s she was seated next to Trump on a flight to New York City.
About 45 minutes after takeoff, Leeds said, Trump lifted the armrest and began to touch her, grabbing her breasts and attempting to put his hand up her skirt.
“He was like an octopus,” Leeds said. “His hands were everywhere.”
Leeds fled to the back of the plane.
“It was an assault,” she said.
Trump’s response
Two of the Republican nominee’s top campaign surrogates — spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — suggested Leeds could not be telling the truth because first class seats at that time had fixed armrests.
“If she was groped on a plane, it wasn’t by Donald Trump and it certainly wasn’t in first class,” Pierson said in a widely mocked appearance on CNN.
“OK, Katrina,” CNN’s Don Lemon responded. “We’ll get our aviation expert here to talk about the airplane.”
Phil Derner Jr., an aviation enthusiast, told Yahoo News that some planes at that time had adjustable armrests, both in coach and some in first class.
Trump himself seemed to mock Leeds’ appearance.
“Believe me. She would not be my first choice. That I can tell you,” he said at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., on Oct. 14. “That would not be my first choice.”
Rachel Crooks
Crooks told the Times that in 2005 Trump kissed her on the mouth at Trump Tower in New York City without her consent.
Crooks, then a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate investment and development company located inside Trump’s Manhattan high-rise, said she encountered Trump outside an elevator and introduced herself:
They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.”
It didn’t feel like an accident, she said. It felt like a violation.
“It was so inappropriate,” Ms. Crooks recalled in an interview. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.”
Shaken, Ms. Crooks returned to her desk and immediately called her sister, Brianne Webb, in the small town in Ohio where they grew up, and told her what had happened.
“She was very worked up about it,” said Ms. Webb, who recalled pressing her sister for details. “Being from a town of 1,600 people, being na?ve, I was like, ‘Are you sure he didn’t just miss trying to kiss you on the cheek?’ She said, ‘No, he kissed me on the mouth.’ I was like, ‘That is not normal.’”
Trump’s response
A lawyer for the Republican nominee issued a letter accusing the Times of libel and demanding a retraction from the paper. The candidate himself responded on Twitter, calling the story “phony” and a “total fabrication.”
The Times said it would not back down in the face of Trump’s legal threat.
“We stand by the story, which falls clearly into the realm of public service journalism,” a spokeswoman for the newspaper told Yahoo News.
Natasha Stoynoff
Stoynoff, a People magazine writer, says Trump forced himself on her in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, where she was conducting a joint interview with the real estate mogul and his wife, Melania.
“In December 2005, around the time Trump had his now infamous conversation with Billy Bush, I traveled to Mar-a-Lago to interview the couple for a first-wedding-anniversary feature story,” Stoynoff recalled in an essay for People on Oct. 12. “Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been. When we took a break for the then-very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion. There was one ‘tremendous’ room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.”
We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.
Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger — a looming figure — and 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.
The butler informed us that Melania would be down momentarily, and it was time to resume the interview.
I was still in shock and remained speechless as we both followed him to an outdoor patio overlooking the grounds. … The butler left us, and I fumbled with my tape recorder. Trump smiled and leaned forward.
“You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” he declared, in the same confident tone he uses when he says he’s going to make America great again. “Have you ever been to Peter Luger’s for steaks? I’ll take you. We’re going to have an affair, I’m telling you.”
Trump’s response
The candidate tweeted that the alleged incident never happened.
Mindy McGillivray
McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that she was groped by Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2003.
McGillivray, who was 23 at the time, said she never reported it to authorities. But she told photographer Ken Davidoff, who was taking photos at a Ray Charles concert hosted by the club, that “Donald just grabbed my ass!”
“Ray already performed. He’s ready to leave. He’s saying his goodbyes to everyone,” McGillivray recalled. “All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it’s Ken’s camera bag, that was my first instinct. I turn around and there’s Donald. He sort of looked away quickly. I quickly turned back, facing Ray Charles, and I’m stunned.”
Trump’s response
“There is no truth to this whatsoever,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Yahoo News.
Temple Taggart McDowell
McDowell, a former Miss Utah, told NBC News that Trump “embraced me and gave me a kiss on the lips” in 1997, when she was a 21-year-old Miss USA pageant contestant.
McDowell said Trump, who owned the Miss Universe pageant at the time, later offered to help her get contracts with elite modeling agencies:
And during a visit to Trump Tower in Manhattan at Trump’s invitation, he again embraced and kissed her on the lips, this time in front of two pageant chaperones and a receptionist.
The New York encounter made one of the chaperones so “uncomfortable” that she advised McDowell not to go into any rooms with Trump alone, McDowell said. The other chaperone accompanied her into Trump’s office, she said.
McDowell, who had previously spoken out about the incident, offered more details in light of lewd comments Trump made in the 2005 video.
Trump’s response
“I don’t even know who she is,” Trump told NBC News. “She claims this took place in a public area. I never kissed her. I emphatically deny this ridiculous claim.”
Summer Zervos
Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant, said that during what she expected to be a 2007 business meeting with Trump, he forcibly kissed her, groped her breasts and thrust his genitals toward her in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“He came to me and started kissing me open-mouthed as he was pulling me towards him,” Zervos said Friday in a televised press conference with star lawyer Gloria Allred. “He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again, very aggressively, and placed his hand on my breast.”
Later, attempting to repel his alleged advances, Zervos said, “I pushed his chest, put space between us and said, ‘Come on man, get real.’ He repeated my words back to me, ‘Get real,’ as he began thrusting his genitals.”
Zervos appeared on the fifth season of Trump’s popular reality show, and was the first contestant that season to be “fired.”
Trump’s response
In a statement, Trump said he “vaguely” remembered Zervos, but he denied that the incident she described had happened and called the accusations “unfounded.”
“I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago,” the statement said. “That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life.”
In an effort to further refute Zervos’ claims, the Trump campaign also put forward the statement of John Barry, a man it identified as her first cousin, who said he was “bewildered” by her story and that she had previously had “nothing but glowing things to say” about him.
“I think Summer wishes she could still be on reality TV,” Barry said. “And in an effort to get that back, she’s saying all of these negative things about Mr. Trump.”
Kristin Anderson
Anderson, a former model, told the Washington Post that Trump put his hand up her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear one night in a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s. The story was published Oct. 14.
Like several of the women who have come forward with claims of sexual misconduct by Trump, both Zervos and Anderson said they were compelled to share their stories after hearing Trump brag about sexually assaulting women on the now-infamous 2005 hot mic recording in which he said he could “do anything” to women because of his celebrity status.
“The reason that I’m saying this now and not before — where I didn’t think it was consequential to talk about before — was basically the bus tape that is so disgusting, really,” Anderson said in a video interview with the Post. “I watched this woman who could’ve been me, it could’ve been anyone, walk in and shake his hand. And that was just nauseating because she has no idea what she’s walking into and what could possibly happen to her.”
Anderson said she felt the need to speak up after reading about Leeds’ story.
“I was in a fortuitous position. I could just get up and move, but what if I hadn’t been?” Anderson said. “After that, I was like, ‘OK, you know what? Let me just back these girls up! You know, that’s not OK.”
Trump’s response
“Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity,” Trump spokeswoman Hicks said in a statement. “It is totally ridiculous.”
Cassandra Searles
Searles – a former Miss Washington who participated in the 2013 Miss USA pageant – claimed in a Facebook post earlier this year that Trump repeatedly grabbed her buttocks and propositioned her during the contest.
“He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room,” Searles wrote in a thread in which she asked if her fellow contestants remember how Trump purportedly treated them like “property.”
“Do y’all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn’t look him in the eyes?” she wrote. “Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?” She added, “Oh I forgot to mention that guy will be in the running to become the next President of the United States.”
Other contestants sounded off on their experiences with the real estate mogul. Paromita Mitra, Miss Mississippi USA 2013, admitted, “I literally have nightmares about that process,” while Shannon McAnally called Searles’ account “so extremely true and scary.” Anna Horne noted, “Scares me so much.”
Trump’s response
Neither Trump nor his campaign has responded to Searles’ allegations specifically.
Cathy Heller
Heller claims that when she met Trump during a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago in 1997, Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her in the club’s lobby.
“He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,” Heller told the Guardian Oct. 16.
She said she leaned backward and tried to pull away, nearly losing her balance.
“And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips,” Heller continued. She turned her head and and Trump kissed her on the side of her mouth.
“He kept me there for a little too long,” Heller said. “And then he just walked away.”
“I was angry and shaken,” she added. “He was pissed. He couldn’t believe a woman would pass up the opportunity.”
Trump’s response
“There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother’s Day at Mr. Trump’s resort,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement. “It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.”
“The reality is this: For the media to wheel out a politically motivated Democratic activist with a legal dispute against this same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public, and anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim.”
Heller, a Clinton supporter, donated the individual maximum of $2,700 to the Democratic nominee’s 2016 campaign, but denies her story is part of a conspiracy to tip the election in the former secretary of state’s favor.
Jill Harth
Harth, a former beauty pageant producer, filed a 12-page complaint in 1997 alleging that Trump engaged in hostile and offensive sexual behavior toward her from 1992 to 1997, including “groping” her under her dress on several occasions and attempting to have sex with her in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom.
In the court filing, Harth also claimed that on Jan. 9, 1993, Trump “forcefully removed [Harth] from public areas of Mar-a-Lago in Florida and forced [her] into a bedroom belonging to defendant’s daughter Ivanka, wherein [Trump] forcibly kissed, fondled, and restrained [her] from leaving, against [her] will and despite her protests.” In the court document, she said that Trump bragged that he “would be the best lover you ever have.”
Trump’s response
According to LawNews.com, Trump vigorously denied the charges, saying the suit “was a desperate attempt to get me to settle a case they can’t win.” The case was quickly dismissed:
The timing is interesting because at around the same time the case was withdrawn, Trump reportedly agreed to settle [a separate lawsuit] with Harth’s husband’s company, the American Dream Enterprise, according to an obscure 1997 gossip article in the New York Daily News that appears to be the only mainstream media coverage of either suit.
Karena Virginia
Virginia says she encountered Trump by chance while waiting for a car to pick her up outside the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing, Queens, in 1998.
“He then walked up to me and reached his right arm and grabbed my right arm,” Virginia said at a press conference with Allred. “Then his hand touched the right inside of my breast. I was in shock. I flinched. ‘Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?’ That’s what he said to me. I felt intimidated and I felt powerless.”
“Then my car pulled up and I got in,” she continued. “After I closed the door, my shock turned to shame. I felt ashamed that I was wearing a short dress and high heels. That feeling of shame stayed with me for a while, and it made me disinclined to wear short dresses or high heels. For a number of years afterwards, I struggled with what to wear so as to not attract unwanted attention.”
Trump’s response
Jessica Ditto, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, released a statement dismissing Virginia’s allegation as part of a pro-Clinton conspiracy.
“Discredited political operative Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr. Trump. Give me a break,” Ditto said. “Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton.”
Jessica Drake
Drake, a porn star and sex educator, says Trump grabbed and kissed her and two women without their permission during a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif., 10 years ago.
She said the real estate mogul then offered her $10,000 and the use of his private plane if she would agree to come back to his hotel room and accompany him to a party.
Drake, who also went public at a press conference accompanied by Allred, released a photo of her and Trump taken at the golf tournament.
Trump’s response
“This story is totally false and ridiculous,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “The picture is one of thousands taken out of respect for people asking to have their picture taken with Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump does not know this person, does not remember this person and would have no interest in ever knowing her. This is just another attempt by the Clinton campaign to defame a candidate who just today is No. 1 in three different polls.”
Trump also addressed Drake’s claims in a radio interview.
“One said, ‘He grabbed me on the arm,'” Trump said. “And she’s a porn star. You know, this one that came out recently, ‘He grabbed me and he grabbed me on the arm.’ Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”
Ninni Laaksonen
Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland, told the Ilta-Sanomat newspaper that Trump grabbed her butt in New York City in July 2006.
Laaksonen, now 30, said the incident occurred while she and three other contestants were standing with the real estate mogul outside a taping of the “Late Show With David Letterman.”
“Before the show we were photographed outside the building,” Laaksonen told the paper, according to the Telegraph. “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt. He really grabbed my butt. … I don’t think anybody saw it but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’”
Laaksonen also said she attended several Miss Universe parties where she was told Trump was fond of her.
“Somebody told me there that Trump liked me because I looked like Melania when she was younger,” she said. “It left me disgusted.”
Trump’s response
The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment about Laaksonen’s story.
A campaign on the brink
In the videotape released earlier this month by the Washington Post, Trump was heard boasting to then “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that he could do anything he wanted to with women because of his celebrity status — including groping them.
“I just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.”
The vulgar tape was fiercely denounced by a cascade of Republican leaders, some of whom withdrew their endorsements or called for him to exit the race. With a little more than two weeks to go before Election Day, Trump has been fighting back against those GOP critics while escalating his attacks against Clinton.
While delivering a policy speech in Gettysburg, Pa., Trump vowed he would sue each of his accusers.
“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” he said. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
– With Yahoo News’ Michael Walsh, Caitlin Dickson and Lauren Tuck contributing reporting
