election 2016

In a Press Conference With Gloria Allred, Summer Zervos of The Apprentice Accuses Trump of Sexual Misconduct

L to R: Gloria Allred, Summer Zervos, Donald Trump. Photo: Getty Images; Courtesy of NBC News; Getty Images

On Friday, famed attorney Gloria Allred held a press conference with Summer Zervos, a contestant on season five of The Apprentice and the latest in a long line of women to accuse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. (Around the same time, Trump was speaking about one of the women who had previously accused him of sexual assault, saying, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.”)

After being kicked off of The Apprentice, Zervos still admired Trump and “continued to see him as a possible mentor and a potential employer.” She describes a meeting with him at his New York office in 2007 when she was visiting from California, during which she says he told her he would “love to have” her work for him, and wanted to meet again when he visited Los Angeles in the near future. He also allegedly kissed her on the lips both when they said hello and when they parted ways, something she says upset her but she ultimately chalked up to “some form of greeting.”

Days later, she says they met at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she assumed they would have dinner in a hotel restaurant. Instead, she says she was escorted to his private bungalow. Per her account:

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. He said, “Well, what do you want.” I said, “I came to have dinner.” He said, “Okay, we’ll have dinner.”

She says their dinner only involved business and real-estate talk, and that they met the next morning at his golf course in Palos Verdes. “I wondered if the sexual behavior was some kind of test,” Zervos says, “or whether or not I had passed.” After receiving a tour of Trump’s golf course from the general manager, she says the latter called her and offered her a job for half the salary she was looking for. She says she continued to discuss business opportunities with Trump — though he reportedly told her to no longer use his private number — until he eventually told her he couldn’t afford to hire her.

When a reporter asked Allred and Zervos what they were hoping would come from the allegations, Zervos replied, “I want to be able to sleep when I’m 70 at night.”

Summer Zervos Accuses Trump of Sexual Misconduct