- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Veteran American advice columnist E Jean Carroll has accused former US president Donald Trump of raping her, leaving her unable to have a romantic relationship and shattered her reputation by denying about it.
The 79-year-old told this to a New York jury on Wednesday (26).
According to a report by The Guardian, Carroll testified in her civil lawsuit seeking damages for battery after Trump allegedly assaulted her sexually in a department store changing room in New York in 1996, and for defamation after the latter accused her of lying when she made her accusations public in a book.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. I’m here to try and get my life back,” Carroll, who is also a journalist and author, reportedly told the jury.
Before she testified, judge Lewis Kaplan warned that the former president may have crossed the line into jury-tampering after posting an attack on his social media site Truth Social in which he called Carroll’s charges a “made-up SCAM” and a “witch hunt”, The Guardian report added.
Trump was indicted last month in a case related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 election campaign.
Calling Trump’s post “entirely inappropriate”, Kaplan warned that they could become “a potential source of liability” for him, the report added.
According to Carroll, she ran into Trump while leaving a luxury store and “was delighted” when the latter asked for her help in buying a gift.
She said she suggested a handbag and a hat for the woman Trump said he was buying the gift for but he was not interested. “He then said, ‘I know, lingerie’,” Carroll said.
“He led the way to the escalator,” she was quoted as saying. Carroll added that Trump was very talkative and that she was “absolutely enchanted”.
According to her, the former president picked a grey-blue bodysuit in the lingerie department and asked her to try it on. While she told the court she had no intention to do so, she said that Trump suggested that they both tried it on and went to the dressing room.
While Carroll did not take it too seriously till that point of time, things changed rapidly as they entered the dressing room where the businessman-politician allegedly shut the door and shoved Carroll up against the wall.
“He shoved me so hard my head banged. I was extremely confused,” she said. “I pushed back and he thrust me back against the wall again, banging my head again,” she was quoted as saying by The Guardian report.
She alleged that Trump tried to pull down her tights and she pushed him back as she did not want “anything else to happen”.
She also said that the former president tried to kiss her which was “a shocking thing” for her.
Carroll said she wanted to get out of the room and said quietly and slowly that Trump raped her.
“It left me unable to ever have a romantic life again,” she was quoted as saying.
Carroll later cried as she said that after the incident, she found it impossible to even smile at a man she was attracted, and that she had not had sex since.
“I’m not settling a political score. I’m settling a personal score,” she was quoted as saying.
