Jessica Leeds, whose story of being groped by Donald Trump on an airplane was published by the New York Times on Wednesday, expanded on her claims in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday night.
The Times reported Leeds’ claim that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt, before she moved back to the coach section of the plane—she had been brought up to first class originally to sit next to Trump. In her interview with Cooper, Leeds also alleged that Trump kissed her, and estimated the incident lasted 15 minutes.
“It seemed like forever,” she told Cooper.
“He was grabbing my breasts. And trying to turn me towards him, and kissing me,” she said. “Then after a bit, that’s when his hands started going—I was wearing a skirt. And his hands started going towards my knee and up my skirt.”
Though the Times reported the assault happened in the “early ‘80s,” Leeds told Cooper she believes it took place in 1979.
Leeds also recounted when she ran into Trump again, two years later at a gala for the Humane Society in New York, her employer.
“He looks at me, and he says ‘I remember you, you’re the woman from the airplane,’” though Leeds said Trump referred to her with an obscenity.
Leeds also said a leaked tape of Trump bragging in 2005 about his ability to kiss and grope women without their consent due to his celebrity status, and his subsequent denial of acting on any of his so-called “locker room talk” at Sunday’s presidential town hall debate, spurred her to tell her story.
“He said no, and I literally wanted to throw something at the TV or punch my hand in the TV,” she told Cooper. “And that—that was Sunday night. And Monday morning I found myself writing an e-mail, letter to the editor to the Times.”
Trump told the Times, in response to Leeds’ original claims, “None of this ever took place.” On Thursday at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, he called the Times story a “totally fabricated and false story.”
“Another ridiculous tale, no witnesses, no nothing,” he said.
Watch Cooper’s interview with Leeds below:
