“I want to make it clear even though it is hard, and painful to go up against the world’s most powerful man, I will continue to speak the truth, and I refuse to be intimidated into silence,” Zervos said.
Zervos was a contestant on The Apprentice, and claims when she contacted Trump for a job after the show, he kissed her, groped her breasts, and thrusted his private parts on her.
After Zervos came forward, Trump released a statement to PEOPLE saying, “I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on The Apprentice over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago. That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life.”
“Mr. Trump has been elected president of the United States, he now has the opportunity to begin his term with a clean slate. I challenge him to seize this opportunity now to retract his statement that these accuses are liars and these allegations are fabrications and fiction,” Zervos’s attorney, Gloria Allred said during a press conference.
Allred said that if Trump did move forward with his threatened lawsuits, she wold urge the accusers to countersue for defamation.
[image via screengrab]