Advice columnist E Jean Carroll took the stand Wednesday to candidly recall one day three decades ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room where, as she told the court: “Donald Trump raped me.”
Carroll is suing the former president for battery under a New York law allowing adults who allege sexual abuse a one-time opportunity to sue, even if relevant statutes of limitations have expired.
Trump denies having raped her, claiming at various points that her story is a “hoax” or a “scam” and that he did not find Carroll attractive.
She first went public with her accusation in June 2019, saying the incident occurred in late 1995 or early 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman after she bumped into Trump.
“He said, ‘Hey, you’re that advice lady.’ I said, ‘Hey, you’re that real estate tycoon,’” Carroll recalled Wednesday, New York Magazine reported. Trump allegedly asked for help buying a lingerie gift.
“I’m a bored advice columnist. I love to give advice, and here was Donald Trump asking me for advice about buying a present,” she said, according to Politico.
Earlier in the day, Carroll’s lawyers had shown a photograph of Carroll from around the same time, noting that she bore a strong resemblance to Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, The Washington Post reported.
Trump allegedly suggested Carroll try on a lace bodysuit and she responded by saying he should try it — she described the mood as lighthearted and fun.
That is, until Trump allegedly used his physical stature to pin her against the wall of a dressing room, pull down her tights and assault her.
“I was pushing him back,” Carroll testified, according to The New York Times, adding that she was “almost too frightened to think”.
“His fingers went into my vagina, which was extremely painful,” she said, adding that Trump curved his fingers inside her body. A short time after he inserted his penis into her, she said, she was able to free herself and run from the dressing room.
She said she only started coming to terms with the gravity of what happened when a friend pointed out she had been raped.
The New York Times’ Kate Christobek observed that while Carroll became emotional at times, she was “deliberate with her testimony, often taking long pauses to choose her words carefully”, and told “self-deprecating” anecdotes.
She also repeated her assertion that the alleged assault hindered her ability to enjoy sex and romance.
“It left me unable to ever have a romantic life again,” Carroll said, per Politico.
She testified that she has not had sex since the incident in the dressing room.
“The short answer is because Donald Trump raped me,” Carroll said, according to the Times report.
In 2015, when Trump announced he would be running for president, Carroll said she thought the idea sounded terrible: “I thought he was evil.”
As she offered her testimony, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to offer his criticism.
“Does anybody believe I would take a then almost 60 year old woman that I didn’t know, from the front door of a very crowded department store, (with me being very well known, to put it mildly!), into a tiny dressing room, and .... her,” Trump wrote. (Carroll would have been in her early 50s at the time.)
“SCAM!” he added.
It remains unclear whether Trump, who is currently embroiled in several high-profile court cases, will testify. He has not been present in court so far this week.
Carroll is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the trial, which is expected to continue Thursday with Carroll resuming her testimony, according to The Washington Post.