Former Miss Utah Temple Taggart McDowell told NBC News in a Wednesday interview that Donald Trump gave her an unwanted kiss not just once, but twice.
McDowell competed in the Miss USA pageant in 1997, Trump’s first year as owner of the pageant. She first told the New York Times about the first time she met Trump in an interview published on Saturday.
“He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought: ‘Oh, my gosh. Gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth,” she said. “I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’”
She told the Times that she felt she should share her story after the release of a 2005 tape in which Trump boasted about walking up to women and kissing them.
“It was like, ‘Thank you.’ Now no one can say I made this up,” she told the Times.
McDowell elaborated on her encounters with Trump in an NBC News interview Wednesday night.
She told NBC that Trump hugged her and gave her a kiss on the lips after her father introduced her to Trump.
“I remember being shocked,” she told NBC. “I was very young and I remember feeling kind of embarrassed, like wanting to almost wipe my mouth, like, ‘What just happened?’”
She also recalled a second unwanted kiss from Trump.
McDowell went to meet with Trump at Trump Tower in New York after he offered to help her with her modeling career, according to NBC News. She said that she was waiting for him with a receptionist and her chaperone sitting in the room. McDowell said that when Trump came out to greet her, he hugged her and kissed her on the lips again.
“I remember immediately thinking, ‘What does he think this is?'” she said on NBC, adding that the incident was “super awkward.”
At the time, she thought maybe that it was a custom on the East coast that she had not yet encountered. But she said it was “uncomfortable.”
“I would never approach or greet anybody like that unless it was somebody that I had been dating,” she said.
McDowell also told NBC that the incident made her chaperone uncomfortable, and that the two made plans so that McDowell would never meet with Trump alone.
Trump denied to NBC News that the incidents took place.
“I don’t even know who she is,” he said. “She claims this took place in a public area. I never kissed her. I emphatically deny this ridiculous claim.”
McDowell’s comments come as several women on Wednesday accused Trump of groping them or giving them unwanted kisses. Two women told the New York Times that Trump groped them years ago. And the Palm Beach Post reported accusations from a woman who said that Trump grabbed her at Mar-A-Lago. A People Magazine writer also said on Wednesday that Trump forcibly kissed her.
Watch the NBC interview:
Ya, Don, because this fine lady has ANYTHING to gain from claiming your filthy mouth assaulted hers.
This is from the October 8th Surprise. Ancient news.
It’s dark in my locker room. I don’t know who I kiss and when. I thought I was kissing my wife. My life is a locker room.
It would be irresponsible to elect someone who exhibits clear signs of Alzheimer’s or some other memory ailment as POTUS.