E. Jean

0:00Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

0:51You've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint's story is better. Every plan,$15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tears. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. This episode contains a description of sexual abuse. Please use discretion. A few weeks ago, I visited E. Jean Carroll at her house in the woods in New York.

1:25She offered to read me some of the messages she'd gotten online that day. Okay, here. Here's a typical. You all end up in jail, hopefully. Your day will come. Absolutely no evidence. Okay. You'll never see a dime. Still making money off the grift, huh? And you are a liar. I'm surprised there's no, no, how ugly I am here. So it just keeps going. I mean, it won't stop. Yeah, no, these are pretty, this is actually, this puts me in a good mood because there's not even a mild threat here. E. Jean Carroll has been getting messages like this since June 2019, when she first publicly accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in her Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.

2:15E. Jean was a well-known writer by then. She'd moved to New York from Montana in her late 30s, after she was assigned her first magazine story. In the 80s, she was hired to write for Saturday Night Live. And by the mid-90s, she was writing an advice column for Elle magazine called Ask E. Jean, which was so popular it was turned into a cable television show. Have you always been good at giving advice? I do it's here's the thing it's very I'm a cheerleader so I figure out what the person wants me to tell them when they send the letter and then I just tell them do it or don't do it it's fairly simple it's kind of a black and white thing yeah but then the gray areas when after I send the answer then I worry about it for days afterwards, sometimes weeks afterwards, sometimes months afterwards.

3:14But you really got to give them a solid yes or no. You know, that's why my column was liked, because many advice columnists will enter into the very fascinating gray parts. I'm not interested in the gray parts. I either want you to do it or not do it. Life is short. You got to do it or not do it, right? What's life like for you? I mean, what are you feeling in the mid-90s in New York? Oh, I'm living at 90 miles an hour. I have like three outfits. I have a pair of cowgirl boots. I have my jeans. I have, I'll show it to you. We'll walk over. I have it sitting there. I have it hanging on the mall.

3:55It's a buckskin jacket. I had a black corduroy shirt. I had a white dress shirt that I picked up off the street. and I thought I was fabulous. Four o 'clock in the morning, we'd be running down the boulevards. We'd be going to brasserie for a cup of coffee at the end of the night. Magazines were at their peak. It was great. So let's talk about what happens when you run into Donald Trump in 1996. Tell me about that day. Well, at the time, I had a talk show based on the Ask Eugene column in L, and it was called Ask Eugene. And it was on a network started by Roger Ailes, who went on to create Fox News.

4:46So I had a live talk show every day for one hour at 4 o 'clock, and it re-ran every night at 11. so I am coming out of Bergdorf's and I don't remember why I went there it was after the show it was around 6.37 and I come out and Donald Trump is standing on the other side out in the street ready to come in the door and he stopped me and he came on through He said, hey, you're that advice columnist. And I said, hey, you're that real estate mogul. So he knew me because Donald Trump watches television. And then so he asked me for advice on buying a present for a girl. And I thought, oh, boy. What did he say?

5:48I need to buy it. I mean, do you remember what he said to you? Yeah, he said, I have to buy a present for a girl. Come advise me. What could be better? I could have dined out at Elaine's for five nights in a row on a story like that. So, of course, I said, yeah, let's, yeah. And what happened next? Well, I suggested he get her a handbag. He didn't like that idea. And the handbags at Bergdorf's. I think your listeners probably know Bergdorf's. It's a seven-story building. It used to be a home of the Bergdorf Goodman family, and it's a luxury specialty store. So when I said, how about a handbag, we're looking at$6 ,000 and$7 ,000 and$8 ,000 handbags in the 1990s.

6:35Beautiful works of art. But he wasn't interested in that. And then I suggested a hat, but he really wasn't. And then he suggested lingerie, and I just thought the story was getting better and better. So, of course, we took the escalator up, and we went to the lingerie department. There was nobody on the floor because it's 637. And he snatched up a bodysuit that was on the counter. He picked it up and he held it up and he said, go put this on. I said, you put it on. What, are you kidding? He said, no, no, no, you're in shape. Go put it on. I said, no, you put it on. And at the time, it was very light, very funny, very joshing.

7:23It couldn't have been better. I had written a sketch. I was a writer at Saturday Night Live. I had written a sketch somewhat similar. So I'm thinking, this is hilarious. What was the sketch for Saturday Night Live? Oh, William Shatner standing in front of a mirror in his underwear, falling in love with himself. Norah Dunn is standing off putting lipstick on, belittling him. He's telling himself, don't ever die, and things like that. So the sketch was somewhat similar, a guy in underwear standing in front of a mirror. So I pictured him putting this bodysuit on over his pants, which to me would have been hilarious.

8:12So he said, after you, he said, let's go put this on. He said, after you. And I just walked in the dressing room, not thinking. Was he funny? He was light. He was light. Let's go put this on. And then he did the big gesture after you, ma 'am. You know, everything overdone. And I did. And my intention, of course, was just to see what happened next, which was him putting those pants. But now the door slammed behind me, and he shoved me up against the wall and hit my head, hit my head very bad. That's how fast it was. I walked in laughing, and that was it. You had no time to say anything. I laughed to try to get the situation in hand.

9:03No, it happened so quickly. There was no words. I couldn't say words. I could laugh to think to, you know, kill any eroticism that was in him. But when it starts, it's a fight. It's a fight. And he was stronger than you. Well, I weighed 120 at the time. He weighed about 220 at the time. He was 6 '2 1⁄2", 6 '3". I was 5 '9 in my stocking feet, but I was wearing 4-inch heels, so I was 6 '1". So he had 100 pounds on me. But at least I was tall enough. So it was once all that weight comes against you, once his whole weight came against me, against my chest, it was rough. But I got out. How'd you get out?

9:59First of all, I was stamping, but second of all, I got my knee wedged up so I could push him out and off. That's all it took. I just needed something. And for some reason, I still had my handbag in my hand. I didn't, and I got out. Did he say anything when you walked out of the dressing room? Not that I recall. He could have. I don't, I don't, he could have. I remember clearly his breathing right next to my face. That I remember. You know? I can remember that. What did you do when you got outside? I called my friend. What'd you say? I said, you're not going to believe this. Were you still laughing?

10:47She told me, I don't think this is funny, Eugene. So I guess I was. The friend she called was Lisa Bernbach, who was also a well-known writer So, my psychiatrist, she has a theory of why I called Lisa Bernbach Because it was an odd person for me to call It would be just odd for me to call Lisa Because she wasn't like my best friend at the time But she was the funniest person I knew I mean, nobody's funnier than Lisa Bernbach She wrote the preppy handbook So apparently I was thinking if Lisa laughs, it was not so bad. What did you say to her? I said, you're not going to believe what happened. And Lisa also said, this is from her court transcript, he pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights.

11:37Apparently I couldn't get over the fact that he pulled down my tights. And then, unfortunately, Lisa said the words that shocked me. she said, he raped you, Eugene. She was feeding her kids dinner. She had to leave the room because she didn't want to use the word in front of them. They didn't know what it meant, but she didn't want to. And it was, I couldn't process it. And even though at the time, I thought I'd been killed in that dressing room. I didn't know what it had happened. I thought I'd died in that dressing room. I had sort of that feeling. but Lisa was going to make everything all right.

12:19I guess, you know, Lisa was going to make it because we're going to laugh about this and then I'll go to Lane's and I'll, you know, so no, she says we've got to go to the police and, oh, that was too much. I said no. She said come to my house. I'll give you dinner. I told her no, I just wanted to go home, so I did. So I went home and I went to work the next day. And that was the only conversation you had about pressing charges, was when Lisa brought it up. You didn't wake up the next morning and think. No. Lisa and I agreed at the end of the phone call. We were never going to speak of this again to anybody.

13:00This is it. It's over. This is not to ever be spoken of again. Of course, the next day, or possibly the next day, I'm not sure, but I saw Carol Martin, one of my very good friends. She also had a TV show at the same network, and that was it. I just saw Carol, and I had to tell Carol then. I had to say, you know, you're not going to believe it. So she said, let's go to my house because she lived 10 minutes away. We sat in her kitchen like you and I are sitting here in my kitchen, and I told her what happened. Well, Carol said, do not go to the police because he has two of the lawyers and he'll bury you.

13:38That's what Carol said. But it was, listen, it's the same today as it was then.

13:47Yes, I could have gone to the police, but I would have lost my job. Roger Ailes would have fired me on the spot. This is why women don't come forward against a powerful man. You lose your job, and he will retaliate. How were you doing in those weeks immediately after? Was it still, you know, were you still just in shock? Or did you find that you were moving forward in some ways, but other parts of you weren't? Well, I thought I was getting along fine. No, I was saying I put it behind me. I'm not a woman who, like, dwells. So I thought I was doing that. So that's what I thought I was doing. You know, but you were never intimate with anyone after that again.

14:39Well, see, there's that. Did it all change for you? I mean, you were moving on, and you were, but in a deeper level, was that, could you see that that was kind of shut down now? I didn't see it at the time. No, I, any time. an attractive, available man would look at me, I couldn't look back. I'd turn my eyes down. I wouldn't smile. I wouldn't do anything. Did you try to go on dates? Well, the dog would have objected. The dog would say, no man's coming in here. Did you try, though, to date? No.

15:34It's not fun. I started two dating sites, if that has anything to do with it. Yeah, I mean, you weren't dating, but at the same time you were... I was in there doing the stuff. I started greatboyfriends.com, where women recommended their ex-boyfriends to each other. So I was psychologically pulling strings behind my own back of getting me out there again, but no. I mean, you wrote a book about finding the right guy. Yes, I did. E. Jean's book was called Mr. Right, Right Now, Man Catching Made Easy. It was published in 2004. Years later, E. Jean spoke to a psychologist about what had happened to her.

16:17She realized she blamed herself. When she saw Donald Trump come into Bergdorf Goodman, she thought he was attractive. She'd flirted with him. She told the psychologist, quote, I can feel the shutdown. It's like when shopkeepers pull down the metal grate to secure the store. I can feel it when it happens. When you're interested in someone, you communicate it in a million little physical ways. And when you like them, you pursue them. I haven't done that since then. I shut it down. You know, it'd be nice for me to call up my fella and say, come over, let's make dinner together. And then we'd watch Netflix.

16:59Then we'd make out like crazy. But no, I don't have that. So, yeah, I lost a lot. When you would hear about him, Donald Trump, and the new, you know, coming up for whatever he was doing in those years after, what would it do to you when you would hear his name? I got really good at, well, Luckily, oddly enough, it's sort of exposure therapy with Donald Trump because you see him so much. You either have to learn to deal with it or your life is shattered, right? So I learned very quickly to bat it away, bat it away. When and why, after all those years, did you decide to come forward and go public with what had happened to you?

17:49Oh, it was the Weinstein story hitting the front page of the New York Times. I thought, well, my God. Yeah, okay. All right. Let's do it. Okay. And then I thought, I've been silent. I'm 75. Jesus, Jean, get the fuck over it and come forward. So that was it. Of course, I couldn't really have foreseen all the damage. But even at the time, I thought, okay, I'll just pay the price. I've got to do it.

18:20I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

18:27We'll be right back.

18:51therapy grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the u.s offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters most like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can get started in as little as two days there are no subscriptions and no long-term commitments you just pay per session the therapist you want takes your insurance on grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little of zero, depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash criminal today to get started.

19:29That's growtherapy.com slash criminal. growtherapy.com slash criminal. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

19:42Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

20:24Once E. Jean Carroll decided to talk about what happened, she said she sat down at her kitchen table and wrote everything down in one sitting. Her story was published as an essay in New York Magazine in June 2019. E. Jean was on the cover, too, Photographed wearing the same wool Donna Karan coat dress she remembers wearing that day in 1996. She still had it at the back of her closet. I was in New York City because when it came out, people thought it'd be best if I'd be in New York. Why? For press or for security? We weren't talking about security then. It never occurred to us. New York Magazine wanted me available.

21:13So I was aware there was a buzz coming on, and I didn't really know anything until I got back to the little tiny cheap hotel I was staying at on 10th Avenue, opened up my computer, and I just saw a slut, skank, lying bitch, you know. And so then I went to my Ask Eugene email, because I always know I will get something nice. And there was something nice. You go, girl. And there was something. And then I opened up the third one, and it was, I stared at it, and I thought I was going to get hit with a bullet at that minute. It was a threat to kill me. and I thought when you get a threat to kill you, you look around, there was no curtain over the window and I like ducked because I thought I was going to get shot.

22:12That's what it's like getting a death because you feel, you read the threat and you think it's happening. And then I got several that night. So my life that I used to know was over and the new life began. Donald Trump denied Eugene's story. He said that he had never met her, that he didn't know her, even though there was a photo of the two of them together at a party in the 80s. And he said, I made it up to sell books, and so that's what happened. You knew he would react, though. I thought he would say it was consensual.

22:58Soon after E. Jean's story was published Lisa Bernbach and Carol Martin both confirmed to the New York Times that E. Jean had told them the same story over 20 years ago Lisa said she thought E. Jean might have called her first because Lisa had just written a magazine article about Donald Trump She remembered they fought about what E. Jean should do next When Lisa told her to go to the police, she said E. Jean said, quote, It was 15 minutes of my life. It's over. Don't ever tell anybody. I just had to tell you. Carol Martin remembered sitting in her kitchen with E. Jean, and she remembered that she told her, quote, I wouldn't tell anybody this.

23:43Donald Trump kept denying anything had happened. He repeated that he didn't know who E. Jean was. And in one interview, he said, quote, she's not my type. Do you think if you were 35, he would have said, she's not my type? Was it something about the fact that you were 75? And, you know, that... Well, of course, everything to do with it, because I was on the cover of New York Magazine with no makeup. From the artistic point of view, it was brilliant. Here she is, no makeup, she's telling the truth. This is a woman. This is an old... So what it was was a shriveled crone on the cover. After her essay came out, E.

24:28Jean was at a party and ran into the lawyer and activist George Conway. They talked about Donald Trump's comments about her. She said it was during that conversation that she realized she could sue Trump for defamation. So in November 2019, she did. But the case was stalled for years. And then, in November 2022, a new law went into effect in New York State called the Adult Survivors Act. What is the Adult Survivors Act? It is a brilliant idea which is now happening in many states across the country where it opens a window for victims of sexual assault to make a complaint in civil court against their abuser.

25:24The statute of limitations usually is shut down in most states after five or six or seven years. But in New York, they opened it up, and we sued him at, I think, two minutes after 12 o 'clock on the day it became legal to do it. E. Jean filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump for battery and, again, for defamation, based on more comments he had made about her in 2022. He'd repeated that her story was a lie and that she was not his type. This time, E. Jean didn't have to wait. A trial was scheduled for the spring of 2023. She started preparing, and she says her legal team scheduled a mock trial.

26:10Lawyers like to present their arguments to people who could be on a jury to find out how their arguments are working. E. Jean says they selected three different juries for the mock trial, trying their best to reflect the New York court's jury pool. And I did not appear. What they had was tapes from me from my deposition. All three juries agreed that, yes, a man and a woman could end up in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman in 1996. And, yes, something sexual could have happened in a Bergdorf dressing room in 1996. And, yes, of course, one of those people was Donald Trump and the other was E.G.

26:52and Carroll. Yes. What they didn't agree on was they thought I wanted it because I was so ugly and so old that there was no way in hell Donald Trump ever attacked me. E. Jean was worried that might happen. She said she'd even talked to her lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, about it. I had suggested to them, I don't like the way I look because I was getting constant. because much of my social media feed concerned how ugly I was. So what we did is I had said, let me show you some clips from the old Ask Eugene show from 1996. Let's do my hair like this. And Robbie said, no, forget it. We'll just show pictures of you.

27:41We don't need it. Then the mock jury happened. First thing Robbie said was, cut your hair. So go back to how you looked in 1996. Yeah, so this is the look I had in 1996. And then we did the color I did in 1996, and the makeup. And I wore clothes exactly that I wore in 1996. The trial started in April of 2023. On the second day, E. Jean was called to the stand, and she told her story to a jury for the first time. She told them she flirted with Donald Trump. She said, quote, I didn't picture anything about what was about to happen. That open door has plagued me for years, because I just walked into it.

28:29She told him that inside the dressing room, Donald Trump forcibly penetrated her with his fingers and his penis. One of Donald Trump's lawyers, Joseph Takapina, cross-examined E. Jean for hours. He asked repeatedly about the details she couldn't remember clearly, like whether Bergdorf Goodman had a revolving door. He spent a lot of time asking her why she didn't scream. She was in a department store, not the middle of nowhere. Why didn't she cry out for help? He brought up the fact that instead she laughed. She told him she wished she had screamed so more people would believe her. It's such an old argument that women have to behave one way and never another.