Donald Trump's primary response to a hot-mic recording of him saying vulgar things about women is that he was just engaging in "locker room talk" with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005. Regardless of whether men actually talk like that in locker rooms, Trump apparently has a broad definition of what "locker room" banter entails, and he did not always find it a reasonable excuse. In the third season of The Celebrity Apprentice, in 2010, Trump fired pro wrestler Maria Kanellis for complaining about Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone defecating in the women's locker room, leaving a stench behind.
In the clip, posted by The Daily Show, Trump calls Kanellis' comment "a little below the belt" and asked her, "Do you sort of regret having said that?" When Kanellis did not regret her comment, saying Stone really was "arrogant" for stinking up her dressing room, Trump said: "Isn't it sort of gross, though, bringing that up? It's like disgusting. This is my boardroom. It's not a locker room. Maria, you're fired."
There are reportedly unaired videos and transcripts from the Apprentice series where Trump says worse things than discussing grabbing women's genitals and trying to bed married women, but as long as he doesn't discuss bowel movements, maybe by Trump's standards, his "locker room talk" isn't a firing offense.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
