Here are all the women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct
LatestNo, I have not. That was the answer Donald Trump gave Anderson Cooper during the second presidential debate, after Cooper asked the Republican nominee if he had ever kissed or groped women without their consent. The question was spurred by the now-infamous “pussy grabbing” video from 2005 that leaked just days before, in which Trump is heard bragging about his ability to sexually assault women.
It was only a matter of time, really, before women would come forward to challenge Trump’s claim. Within days, multiple women told chilling stories about Trump groping or otherwise assaulting them. In light of the growing number of testimonies, we’ve created a list of all of the women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years—both before and after the leaked video surfaced. For his part, Trump denies all allegations, which range from leering at naked teenage girls to rape.
Ninni Laaksonen
Ninni Laaksonen is the latest pageant contestant to assert that Donald Trump groped her. As the former Miss Finland told the Finnish tabloid Ilta Sanomat this week, the incident took place while she posed with Trump for a promotional photo for an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman back in 2006. Laaksonen said that, during the photo op, Trump aggressively grabbed her butt. “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt. He really grabbed my butt,” she told the tabloid. “I don’t think anybody saw it but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’”
Jessica Drake
In a press conference organized by famed attorney Gloria Allred on October 22nd, Jessica Drake, an adult film actor and director, claimed Donald Trump behaved inappropriately with her when they met at a charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006.
In recounting the incident, Drake said Trump asked for her phone number, which she provided, then invited her to his hotel suite later that night. Feeling uncomfortable, Drake said she brought two female friends with her—and that’s when Trump began acting sexually aggressive. “He grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission,” Drake said during the press conference.
According to Drake, all three women left 30 to 45 minutes later, but Trump wanted more: Drake said he called her and asked her to return, but she declined his offer multiple times. Trump then offered her $10,000 and the use of his private jet, she said, which she again declined.
As for why she’s coming forward now, Drake said, “I realize that in this situation I may be but a tiny grain of sand. But clearly, this is an enormous beach.”
In a statement, Trump’s campaign called her allegations “totally false and ridiculous.”
Karena Virginia
In an earlier press conference organized by Allred the morning after the third and final presidential debate, Karena Virginia alleged Trump harassed her during the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, New York back in 1998, when she was 27 years old. Virginia said Trump grabbed her arm and touched her breast while she was waiting for a car. “He said, ‘Hey, look at this one, we haven’t seen her before. Look at those legs,’ as if I was an object, not a person,” Virginia recalled. Trump also allegedly asked her, “Don’t you know who I am?”
Summer Zervos
Summer Zervos, who competed on The Apprentice in 2006, claims Donald Trump sexually assaulted her at a hotel in Beverly Hills back in 2007. At a press conference on October 14th, the first organized by Allred, Zervos said that Trump had contacted her about a possible job following her stint on the show. When the two met up in New York she says Trump forcibly kissed her on the mouth and asked for her number. Weeks later, she says Trump asked her to come to the Beverly Hills Hotel for a meeting, where she thought they would get dinner. Instead Zervos was allegedly sent to Trump’s bungalow and says Trump became sexually aggressive, kissing her open-mouthed, touching her breasts and thrusting his genitals at her. She says she rejected Trump’s advances multiple times.
Kristin Anderson
After the second presidential debate, Kristin Anderson told the Washington Post she was at a Manhattan nightclub in the 1990s when a man sat down next to her, slid his fingers up her skirt, and touched her vagina through her underwear. Anderson says she shoved the hand away, looked at the man, and quickly realized it was Donald Trump. “He was so distinctive looking—with the hair and the eyebrows. I mean, nobody else has those eyebrows,” she said. Two of Anderson’s friends confirmed to the Post that Anderson had told them the Trump story long before he ran for president.
Jessica Leeds
Seventy-four-year-old Jessica Leeds says she met Trump back in the 1980s on a flight to New York while sitting in first class, as reported by The New York Times. She says about 45 minutes after take-off, Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to lift up her skirt. “He was like an octopus,” she told the Times. “His hands were everywhere.” Leeds said she decided to come forward after watching Trump lie about his behavior during the debate. “I wanted to punch the screen,” she said.
Trump has denied the assault ever took place, and his lawyers fired off a letter to the newspaper demanding a retraction.
Rachel Crooks
Also featured in the Times story is Rachel Crooks, who says she met Trump back in 2005 when she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company in Manhattan. Crooks says she ran into Trump outside an elevator at Trump Tower and decided to introduce herself. She says Trump shook her hand, but would not let go, and then kissed her directly on the mouth. “It was so inappropriate,” Crooks told the Times. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.” Coincidentally, 2005 is the same year Trump was bragging to Billy Bush about needing Tic-Tacs to forcibly kiss women whenever he wanted.
Natasha Stoynoff
Natasha Stoynoff was a writer for People back in the early 2000s and her beat was all things Donald Trump. In December 2005 she was sent to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, to interview him and his new wife Melania. During the interview Stoynoff says Trump took her into a private room and tried to force himself on her. “Within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,” she wrote in a piece for People following the second presidential debate. Trump’s unwanted advances were thwarted, she says, only when the butler barged in to say Melania would be joining them very soon. Afterward, Stoynoff says Trump told her, “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”
Jill Harth
Jill Harth, a former business associate of Trump’s, sued him for sexual harassment in 1997. Her case has been reported on several times since then (including by me back in July), but it’s interesting to look at it now in light of the new allegations. Harth’s accusations against Trump are nearly identical to Stoynoff’s. She claims that, in 1993, while visiting Mar-a-Lago, Trump offered to give her a tour of the grounds. On the tour he allegedly pulled her into a private room (Ivanka’s bedroom), pushed her up against a wall, groped her, kissed her, and lifted up her dress. “I was admiring the decoration, and next thing I know he’s pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me,” Harth previously told the Times.
Ivana Trump
Perhaps Trump’s most famous accuser is his ex-wife Ivana, who during a deposition in the 1990s described a harrowing scene in which Trump held her arms back, pulled at her hair, and raped her in a fit of rage. She herself used the word “rape.” The details of the incident were made public in the 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, written by the journalist Harry Hurt III.
Trump denies this incident took place, and before the book hit shelves his lawyers required that it include a statement at the front written by Ivana, in which she walks back her use of the word “rape.” Instead Ivana said that she felt “violated.”
Jane Doe
In 2016, a woman using the name Jane Doe filed a federal lawsuit against Trump in New York state, claiming that Trump raped in 1994 when she was just 13 years old. According to the suit, Jane Doe had moved to New York to be a model and attended parties with Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein—a registered sex offender known in the media as the “billionaire pedophile.” She claims at one party Trump tied her to a bed, exposed himself to her and then raped her in a “savage sexual attack.” She also claims that when she was screaming for him to stop, Trump told her “that he would do whatever he wanted.” According to legal docs Jane Doe has two witnesses who say her accounts are true. Trump has denied these claims.
In October 2016, a judge called a hearing in the case, which is scheduled for December.
Cassandra Searles
In June 2016, Cassandra Searles, a former Miss Washington, wrote several Facebook posts describing how Trump groped her while she was competing in the 2013 Miss USA pageant, which he owned. In one Facebook post, she reportedly wrote, “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room,” but then later deleted it.
In another Facebook, post she wrote:
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? Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property? Oh I forgot to mention that guy will be in the running to become the next President of the United States.
Temple Taggart
Former Miss Utah Temple Taggart told The New York Times back in May that Trump kissed her on the lips several times without her consent during the 1997 Miss USA pageant, when she was a 21-year-old contestant. “He kissed me directly on the lips,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’” Trump denies this happened.
Mindy McGillivray
McGillivray, now 36, told the Palm Beach Post following the second presidential debate that Trump groped her during a photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago back in 2003. According to the Post, her companion, photographer Ken Davidoff, vividly remembers that McGillivray pulled him aside after the alleged incident took place and told him, ‘’Donald just grabbed my ass!’’ She never pressed charges. Speaking to the Post Wednesday night, Trump press secretary Hope Hicks dismissed McGillivray’s story. “There is no truth to this whatsoever,” she said.
Erin Burnett’s friend
During an on-air segment for CNN, anchor Erin Burnett said that an unnamed friend told her that Trump had tried to kiss her on the mouth. According to Erin, her friend told her, “Trump took Tic-Tacs, suggested that I take them also. He then leaned in… catching me off guard and kissed me almost on the lips. I was really freaked out.” These allegations came out after Trump bragged on the leaked video about eating Tic-Tacs and then kissing women on the mouth.
Miss Teen USA contestants
In an interview with Buzzfeed, five former 1997 Miss Teen USA contestants claimed Donald Trump had a habit of walking into the dressing room while contestants changed. Some contestants were as young as 15 years old.
According to the report, the girls would rush to cover their naked bodies when they saw Trump. As Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA, told Buzzfeed. “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here.'” Other contestants, who wished to remain anonymous, described Trump’s backstage presence as “shocking” and “creepy.”
As the accusations against him piled up, this is how Trump responded in a speech in Florida the Thursday following the second presidential debate: “These claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false—and the Clinton Machine knows it is. It’s all fabricated. It’s pure fiction and outright lies. These events never happened. The claims are preposterous, ludicrous and defy truth, common sense and logic.” He went on: “We already have substantial evidence to dispute these lies, and it will be made public in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time.”
Meanwhile, we’ll continue updating this story as any new allegations against Trump come to light.
Taryn Hillin is Fusion’s love and sex writer, with a large focus on the science of relationships. She also loves dogs, Bourbon barrel-aged beers and popcorn — not necessarily in that order.