More to come. A producer from The Apprentice warned via Twitter on Saturday, October 8, that the newly surfaced 2005 footage of Donald Trump is “just the beginning.”
“As a producer of Seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse,” Emmy Award–winning producer Bill Pruitt tweeted. “#justthebeginning.”
The Bachelor producer Mike Fleiss similarly took to Twitter to note: “Told ya!!! The first of The Trump Tapes has been released. Boom! A lot more where that came from! @realDonaldTrump is a pure scumbag!!!”
As Us Weekly previously reported, a 2005 conversation Trump had with Billy Bush, then-cohost of Access Hollywood, leaked on Friday, October 7. In the exchange, which took place when Trump was seemingly unaware his mic was hot, the real estate mogul talked about trying to “f–k” a married woman (later identified as Nancy O’Dell), and said that being a celebrity enabled him to grab women “by the p–sy.”
On Sunday, October 9, another producer, Chris Nee, added her 2 cents to the buzz about more damaging tapes being out there, explaining that legal fees were the main reason why footage from Trump’s NBC show hasn’t yet been leaked.
“Hey @mcuban – offer to pay the legal fees and fines of anyone who produces the hot mic tapes from #TheApprentice – last few seasons will do,” she tweeted, later adding, “I don’t have the tapes. I’ve signed a Burnett contract & know leak fee is 5 mill. Hearing from producers/crew N word is the ‘much worse.’” (Nee later deleted the tweet.)
“Until someone produced those #hotmic tapes we won’t know,” she continued. “But the fee is why no one has leaked.”
On Monday, October 3, the Associated Press released the findings of a new investigation into claims that Trump, 70, made lewd and sexist comments about female contestants during his time as host of the reality competition series.
According to the AP, eight former crew members claimed that the GOP presidential candidate made crass remarks about a camerawoman’s backside and compared her beauty to that of his daughter Ivanka Trump.
Randal Pinkett, who won season 4 of The Apprentice in December 2005, told the AP that Trump talked about which female contestants he wanted to sleep with, despite marrying third wife Melania Trump earlier that year.
“He was like, ‘Isn’t she hot? Check her out,’ kind of gawking, something to the effect of ‘I’d like to hit that,'” Pinkett recounted.
Season 10 contestant Gene Folkes added that the real estate mogul told female contestants to wear shorter dresses and to show more cleavage. At one point, multiple crew members told the outlet, Trump even asked contestant Poppy Carlig to twirl in front of him so he could ogle at her figure.
“We were in the boardroom one time, figuring out who to blame for the task, and he just stopped in the middle and pointed to someone and said, ‘You’d f–k her, wouldn’t you? I’d f–k her. C’mon, wouldn’t you?'” an unidentified crew member said. “Everyone [was] trying to make him stop talking, and the woman [was] shrinking in her seat.”
The Trump campaign issued a statement refuting the statements of the more than 20 staffers who were interviewed for the story.
“These outlandish, unsubstantiated and totally false claims fabricated by publicity-hungry, opportunistic, disgruntled former employees have no merit whatsoever,” Hope Hicks, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, told the AP. “The Apprentice was one of the most successful prime-time television shows of all time and employed hundreds of people over many years, many of whom support Mr. Trump’s candidacy.”
