“This is what I was wearing 23 years ago when Donald Trump attacked me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room,” proclaims famed Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, 75, on the cover of the June 24 issue of New York magazine. In an excerpt of her upcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, published within the magazine, Carroll accuses Donald Trump, 73, of assaulting her inside the luxury department store in late 1995/early 1996. “Early one evening, as I am about to go out Bergdorf’s revolving door on 58th Street, and one of New York’s most famous men comes in the revolving door…and he says: ‘Hey, you’re that advice lady!’ And I say to No. 20 on the Most Hideous Men of My Life List: ‘Hey, you’re that real-estate tycoon!’ “
Trump, according to E. Jean Carroll, asked her to help him pick out lingerie because he had to “buy a present” for “a girl.” After he suggested that Carroll put on a see-through bodysuit, she joked that they should both try it on. They went into the Bergdorf dressing room together, and that is when she alleges that Trump violated her. She claims he shoved her against the wall, pulled down her tights and allegedly forced “his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.” She said the alleged incident lasted “no more than three minutes.”
The president has vehemently denied these claims. “This is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad,” a senior White House official said in a statement to New York magazine. HollywoodLife has reached out to the White House for additional comment.
In the excerpt, E. Jean Carroll went over the list of questions that usually follow whenever a woman who claims she’s been assaulted. She didn’t report this alleged attack to the police, but she did tell “two close friends” right after the incident. The first one encouraged her to tell the authorities while the second told her to forget it because “he has 200 lawyers. He’ll bury you.”
When explaining why she didn’t “come forward” before, E. Jean Carroll said, simply, that she was a coward. “Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun,” she said. New York magazine contacted the two close friends to verify that E. Jean Carroll did tell them about the alleged incident.
With these allegations, E. Jean Carroll becomes the 16th woman to accuse Donald Trump of some form of misconduct, per Intelligencer. For those unaware of who E. Jean Carroll is, she is one of the most revered names in journalism. At the time of the alleged encounter, E. Jean Carroll was known for her frequent articles in Playboy and Esquire. She also had her own television show on America’s Talking, the cable channel that would transform into MSNBC. Her “Ask E. Jean” column has appeared in Elle magazine since 1993.
Trump is not the only powerful man E. Jean Carroll accused of assaulting her. In the article, she lists six alleged incidents with “hideous men.” In one episode, she accuses disgraced CBS head Les Moonves of violating her in a Beverly Hills hotel during a 1997 interview. Moonves, who stepped down from his role at CBS after multiple women brought forth allegations against him, “emphatically denies” the incident occurred.