Watch Donald Trump 'fire' a woman for using 'locker room' talk on Celebrity Apprentice
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.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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