Donald Trump's "locker room banter" (as he calls it) has backfired on the Republican presidential candidate.
After dismissing the comments during the recent presidential debate as "locker room talk," BuzzFeed News uncovered a scary detail about Trump's past.
Trump bragged to Howard Stern in an April 2005 interview dug up by CNN, that he would go backstage while young women were getting dressed at beauty pagents such as Miss Universe and Miss USA because he was the owner and had the power to. "I sort of get away with things like that," Trump told Stern. Some of the women who were backstage at the Miss Teen USA pageant at the time are now speaking out.
Several women spoke to BuzzFeed News, saying they were shocked to see Trump entering backstage while some of them were either naked or half-naked. "I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, 'Oh my god, there's a man in here,'" Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA, told BuzzFeed News.
"Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before," Trump reportedly told the women backstage.
At least three other women spoke to BuzzFeed News, saying that they remember seeing Trump in the dressing room while young women were getting dressed. Two of them said they "rushed to cover their bodies" and another called Trump's actions "shocking" and "creepy."
Eleven other women contacted by the news site said they did not recall seeing Trump in the dressing room. They told BuzzFeed that it was possible that he entered while they weren't in the room. Contestants in the pageant range from 14- to 19-years-old.
Republicans have repeatedly said that transgender people should not use public restrooms or locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity because they are "bathroom predators." The Human Rights campaign has spoken out against former Republican presidential candidates such as Texas senator Ted Cruz, who ran an ad attacking trans people, saying they should not use public restrooms or locker rooms.
The 2016 Republican Party platform stands against trans people using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. The Log Cabin Republicans called the platform "the most anti-LGBT . . . in the Party's 162-year history."
The party platform called the Obama administration's Department of Education guidance that asks public schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity "illegal, ominous and ignores privacy issues."
Watch Former Miss Arizona tell about Trump walking into dressing rooms while contestants were changing:
