Billy Bush would like you to know that he’s grown a lot in the two years since the country at large saw the 2005 Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump bragging to him about sexually assaulting women.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, the former TV host and always Bush family member — who was fired from his job at the Today show following the tape’s release — said he has discovered that 1) he is “NOT extraordinary” and that 2) knowing you “can laugh even in the darkest hour is a blessing.” To illustrate these important lessons, that he gleaned from two years of “anxiety attacks, fits of rage, feelings of betrayal and abandonment,” he shared a picture of himself taken on Oct. 7, 2016, shortly before the tape was released, wearing a Spanx singlet.
Bush also said that he had “accounted” for his “small part” in the scandal (he told the Hollywood Reporter in May that Trump’s comments were not typical “locker room banter” as the president had claimed, and that he thought at the time was just being “provocative) and that we should all stop this “escalating war on flaws and obliteration of people for things we all do” because it’s “barbaric.”
The “flaws” Bush feels he was unfairly villainized for include, but are not limited to, the following exchange from the Access Hollywood tape. The context is that he and Trump had spotted actress Arianne Zucker, with whom they would be filming a segment. Via the New York Times:
Billy Bush: Uh, yeah, those legs, all I can see is the legs.
Donald Trump: Oh, it looks good.
Bush: Come on shorty.
Trump: Ooh, nice legs, huh?
Bush: Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.
“Let’s take better care of each other,” Bush concluded in his Instagram post.
Indeed.
