In a press conference on Friday with attorney Gloria Allred at her side — and shortly after the Washington Post published the account of another accuser — former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos accused Donald Trump of touching her inappropriately when she met with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 for a dinner meeting. According to Zervos, Trump had asked her to meet with him to discuss a potential job opening with his company. When she arrived at the hotel, Zervos said a security person took her up to Trump’s suite. That’s where she alleges the weirdness began.
I was standing in the entryway. To the left was a bedroom and I saw Mr. Trump’s clothes on the bed. I did not see him but he greeted me with “Hello” in a sing-song voice. I thought a mistake had been made and Mr. Trump thought he was speaking with someone he was more familiar with.
I walked farther into the living room, away from the bedroom, and sat down. I waited for about 15 minutes until Mr. Trump emerged. He had his suit on. I stood up and he came to me and started kissing me open-mouthed as he was pulling me toward him. I walked away and I sat down in a chair. He was in a low seat across from me and I made an attempt at conversation. He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and started kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast.
I pulled back and walked to another part of the room. He walked up, grabbed my hand, and walked me into the bedroom. I walked out. He then turned me around and said, “Let’s lay down and watch some tele-tele.” He put me into an embrace and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest to put space between us and I said, “C’mon, man, get real.” He repeated my words back to me — “get reeeeal” — as he began thrusting his genitals. He tried to kiss me again with my hand still on his chest and I said, “Dude, you’re tripping right now,” attempting to make it clear I was not interested.
Zervos, a restauranteur from Huntington Beach, California who was voted off early in season five of The Apprentice, says that Trump went on to compliment her on the “large set of balls” she exhibited on the NBC reality show he hosted, and attempted to kiss her on the lips as she was about to leave. She added that Trump told her that he would “love to have me work for him.”
UPDATE: Trump released an official statement through his campaign late Friday denouncing Zervos’ claims:
“I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on The Apprentice over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago. That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life. In fact, Ms. Zervos continued to contact me for help, emailing my office on April 14th of this year asking that I visit her restaurant in California.”
In addition, the embattled Republican nominee also used the opportunity to try to undermine the media-created “theater of absurdity.”