In an emotional press conference earlier today, former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos came forward with Gloria Allred to share her story of a time in 2007 when Donald Trump allegedly trapped her in a Beverly Hills hotel room and assaulted her.
After she was fired, she continued to view him as a mentor and wanted to stay in touch with him, so she called to see if he would have lunch with him. What happened next was harrowing.
He couldn't have lunch, but still wanted to meet her. "When I arrived he kissed me on the lips. We sat and spoke and he was extremely complimentary. He said he never met anyone with my combination of being smart and attract activity and with the largest set of balls that I had," she said.
He told her that he'd love to have her work for him, and she was gratified to know there might be a place for her despite having been shunted off of the show. And then the move.
"As I was about to leave. He again kissed me on the lips. This made me feel nervous and embarrassed. This is not what I wanted or expected."
"He asked me for my phone number and I scrawled it down with a marker. I left hurriedly and called my friend in New York because I was upset by the kiss. I called my parents to let them know what had happened. I spoke to my loved ones and we came to a conclusion that undoubtedly it was not a greeting."
Let the creepiness begin.
" Mr. Trump called early in the morning and he referred to me as this OC angel and he wanted to know who I was with at this hour. Even though he called me, he concluded the call by asking for my phone number."
A few days later, he headed to Los Angeles, and gave her a call to see if she wanted to hang out with him for dinner. She was instructed to meet him at the Beverly Hotel. She was met by a security guard, who greeted her and escorted her to Trump's room, where his clothes were on the bed and Trump was nowhere to be seen.
"I was standing in the entry way. To my left was a bedroom and I saw Mr. Trump's clothes on the bed. I did not see him. He greeted me with "hello" that sounded like "hello" in a strong voice. Someone he was familiar with. I thought he was speaking to me so I walked further in the living room and away from the bedroom and sat down."
He kept her waiting, and then gave her a surprise greeting.
"I waited for 15 minutes until Mr. Trump emerged. He had his suit on. I stood up and he came to me and started kissing me open mouth as he was pulling me towards him."
She continued, "I walked away and I sat down in a chair. He was on the left seat across of me. He asked me to sit next to him. I complied and he grabbed my shoulder and began discussing me again aggressively and placed his hand on my breast."
" I pulled back and walked back to another room. He walked up and grabbed my hand and walked me into the bedroom. I walked out."
"He then turned me around and said, lets lay down and watch some telly-telly. He put me in an embrace and I tried to push me away. He said, "come on, get real." And he said "get real" as he began to thrusting his genitals."
Again she said she wasn't interested, that she had come to have dinner with him.
He persisted, and with a creepy dose of psychotherapy, too.
" He started saying that he did not think that I ever known love. I did not want to discuss my personal life with him. He transformed into being all about business and began questioning me as though I was on a job interview. Dinner was delivered to the bungalow. When dinner arrived, he asked me to wait in the small room. I felt that he did not let the waiter to see me. After the table was set. He asked me to come out. We shared a club sandwich."
And then he decided to switch from love analyst to mortgage adviser.
"The conversation focused on the fact that i had a mortgage on my home which I told him I was in good standing. He spoke about how i can get maneuver out of debt. He advised that the bank would take anything to rid themselves of the loan. He told me to call the bank and tell them I was leaving the keys on the table and for them to pick it up. He said that would be a mini-version of what he does."
"He urged me not to make another payment on the home loan," she finished.
The evening wrapped up without any more close encounters with Trump, and she still considered the possibility of working somewhere in his organization. She tried several times to contact the office, but received the cold shoulder.
Zervos ended her statement by saying, "You do not have the right to treat women as sexual objects just because you are a star."
Watch her statement for yourself. I'm sure Trump will try to trash her too, just as he has all the women. But at some point, you have to ask yourself how many women have to come forward before we believe them? For me, it's not a hard question. She, like the other women before her, is completely credible.
