After Hillary Clinton shared her story during the presidential debate Monday night, Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe once labeled “Miss Piggy” by Donald Trump, detailed her experience with the “rude” and “aggressive” real estate mogul.
Machado told CNN on Tuesday night that Trump tried to “destroy my self-esteem.”
“He was really aggressive. He was really rude. He was a bad person with me,” she said.
After Machado won the Miss Universe pageant in the 1990s, Trump mocked her for gaining weight and turned her diet regimen into a media spectacle. After Clinton mentioned his comments about Machado on Monday night, Trump doubled down on Tuesday morning, saying that Machado “gained a massive amount of weight.”
Machado has now voiced her support for Clinton, and is featured in an ad for the campaign slamming Trump and his comments about women.
During a press call with the Clinton campaign on Tuesday afternoon, Machado discussed how she was “mistreated thousands of times during one year” by Trump and said that “he always treated me like trash,” according to an English transcript of the call provided by the Clinton campaign.
She told reporters that she has “trying to forget all about that year, about the abuse, and the bad moments with him.” She described the election as a “bad dream,” saying she never thought she would again see Trump making “misogynous” and “stupid” comments.
Machado also claimed that Trump did not pay her in full for her publicity tour after she won the Miss Universe pageant.
“That big publicity generated a lot of profits for the contest, but not for me. He didn’t pay me what was agreed on on the contract,” she told reporters on the call, according to the transcript. “I never had the courage to sue him, and I could’ve done it. I was scared, and I didn’t dare to sue him.”
“I was always really scared of him and continue to be scared of him. I never said anything because I was scared to be pinned as the rebellious, fat and conflictive Miss Universe because I would speak up and because I didn’t have a relationship with this person,” she continued. “I couldn’t have a good relationship with a person who constantly insulted me, offended me and mistreated me.”
Welp, we all knew he’s a misogynist (and racist and and and -ist) asshole, but I think the personal and direct nature of this, and the fact that this is a well-spoken poised Latina woman, is going to further sink the Trump-tanic.
What. An. Asshole. But the fact that he got away with that shit in public for so many decades also indicts our culture, too. We have a lot of work to do.
I’m wondering if he’ll solidify some mens’ support with this crap.
Cue the Trump troglodytes complaining about Hillary ginning this up and making this poor woman live through it all again. Ugh.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to bracket the word ‘abuse’ in the headline. I know people toss that word around too freely these days, but her treatment was clearly abuse.
The more I learn about Trump, the more I get creeped out, and not just by his treatment of women. I knew a man once back in college who would specifically target women who were childlike both in personality and body (even though they were adults), and the way he talked about children was really uncomfortable. The way Trump talks about women just makes me more and more uncomfortable and I really think he wants women to be as child-like as possible.
And if Machado is ‘fat’ then I’m a whale, thank you very much. I wish I weighed that much.