For more than nearly 20 years, Donald Trump owned the Miss USA, Miss universe and Miss Teen USA properties. He loves beauty pageants because – I believe – they represent everything that Trump thinks about women, that they are supposed to be young and beautiful and interchangeable. In 2005, Trump appeared on Howard Stern’s show and Stern asked him what it was like to own those pageants and be around all of those beautiful young women. Trump said:

“I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else,” he said. “And you know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it…Is everyone okay? You know they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.”

[From WaPo]

Following the re-airing of those comments over the weekend, in the wake of the P-ssy Tape, some of those former beauty queens are speaking out. 2001’s Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told a CBS affiliate that Trump would often just come “waltzing in” while Miss USA contestants were nude or half-naked. Buzzfeed got in touch with some former Miss Teen USA contestants – remember, these would have been teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 19 at the time – to see if they remember anything like that too. And guess what?

Four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Donald Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants — some as young as 15 — were changing.

“I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here,’” said Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA.

Trump, she recalled, said something like, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”

Three other women, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting engulfed in a media firestorm, also remembered Trump entering the dressing room while girls were changing. Two of them said the girls rushed to cover their bodies, with one calling it “shocking” and “creepy.” The third said she was clothed and introduced herself to Trump.

Trump, who owned the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants from 1996 until last year, has publicly bragged about invading beauty queen dressing rooms, calling it one of his prerogatives of ownership. One of the other women who asked to be anonymous, who was 17, said, “At the time, you’re a teenager, you’re intimidated — it’s Donald Trump, he runs the pageant.” And it felt, she said, like “it was his given right” to enter the dressing rooms “because he owned the pageant.”

She added, “We were all very young, but even at the time, it caught us funny.” Now, “as an adult and as a mother,” she said she finds it “absolutely inappropriate.”

The third woman who asked to be anonymous was 15 at the time and said she was fully dressed and doing her makeup when Trump walked in. “I was like, ‘Hi, my name is —’ and I introduced myself.” She said she “had no idea” who he was, except that he was the owner of the pageant. Most of the women had fond recollections of Ivanka Trump, who, they said, came into the changing room to mingle. Billado said she told Ivanka about Donald Trump entering the room while the girls were changing their clothes. Billado remembers Ivanka answering, “Yeah, he does that.”

“I remember it shocking me,” Billado said. “I barely let anybody except my sister see me getting dressed.”

She viewed Trump’s intrusion into the dressing room “was more of a pompous ‘I own this place’ rather than a perverted thing.” Still, she said, “I would never let my daughter run for a pageant that he owns.”

[From Buzzfeed]

You should read the full Buzzfeed article here, there’s more information about how they got in contact with these poor women. And to be fair, many former beauty contestants had no recollection of Trump ever entering the backstage area or eyeballing them while they were in a state of undress. But those who do have memories of it… yeah, they shouldn’t be discounted. Especially since Trump actually admitted to doing it! These were teenage girls for the love the God. Such predatory behavior. Ugh.

Photos courtesy of WENN.