Donald Trump Made a Habit of Walking in on Naked Beauty Pageant Contestants, Some as Young as 15

By Shane Ryan  |  October 12, 2016 | 10:32am
Photo courtesy of Getty
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On one hand, it felt a little clickbait-y to write the headline you see above. On the other, it’s absolutely true—Donald Trump has become so outrageous, and so creepy, that he’s essentially become a sentient clickbait monster.

On CNN last week, comments Trump made to Howard Stern about his entire history with women re-emerged, and they were ugly. The worst, though, came while discussing the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, which Trump owned from 1996 until 2015:

“Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and 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,” Trump said. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good. You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone okay?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody okay?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.”

Good God. As it turns out, reports from the pageant contestants themselves confirmed that yes, this was true, and yes, he walked in on them naked. This story had originally come out in May, but died when the Trump campaign issued a denial. The recovery of the Stern audio, however, reignites the controversy, since Trump actually admits to the act in a national radio show.

Buzzfeed then followed up with a new group of sources, and earlier this morning the results were posted. Horrifyingly, it turns out Trump pulled his little trick not just with the usual pageant contestants, but with women as young as 15 in the Miss USA Teen competition, which he also owned. The lede tells you everything you need to know:

Four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Donald Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants — some as young as 15 — were changing.

“I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here,’” said Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA.

Trump, she recalled, said something like, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”

As usual with Trump, the portrait is painted of a man who uses his power and status to take creepy liberties with women—in this case, teenagers.

One of the other women who asked to be anonymous, who was 17, said, “At the time, you’re a teenager, you’re intimidated — it’s Donald Trump, he runs the pageant.” And it felt, she said, like “it was his given right” to enter the dressing rooms “because he owned the pageant.”

She added, “We were all very young, but even at the time, it caught us funny.” Now, “as an adult and as a mother,” she said she finds it “absolutely inappropriate.”

Local outlets are now covering the story, and as awful as it is, at least there’s light shining on his true character:

In that story, former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told the story of Trump walking in on her and other contestants in various states of undress in 2001, and how they were encouraged to fawn over him. She then distilled Trump’s motivations down to their essence:

I’m telling you Donald Trump owned the pageant for the reasons to utilize his power to get around beautiful women. Who do you complain to? He owns the pageant. There’s no one to complain to. Everyone there works for him.

There has been no comment from the Trump campaign yet. What do you say, after all, when your candidate is a proven sleazeball?

 
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