September 27, 2016 | No Comments
Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado on Tuesday called out Donald Trump, saying his harsh comments about her weight have been like “a really bad dream.”
Machado, a Hillary Clinton supporter, was the featured speaker on a press call organization by the Democratic nominee’s campaign, as they try to drive home the message that Trump is a misogynist with a long track record of dissing women.
The former beauty queen used the call to respond to Trump’s attacks against her — including calling her “Miss Piggy” — and express her support for Clinton.
“I never thought 20 years later, I would be in this position, watching this guy say stupid things, make stupid comments. I never imagined that,” she said, adding, “It’s a really bad dream for me.”
“My story of Miss Universe with this person can open eyes in this election,” she said. “He was not waiting for that—he was like oh my God, why did she pronounce the name?” she said of Trump’s reaction to Clinton bringing up her story.
Clinton on Monday night accused Trump of objectifying and publicly shaming women, and invoked Machado in a heated moment on the debate stage.
“And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them,” Clinton said. “And he called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called her Ms. Housekeeping, because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.”
“Her name is Alicia Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet she’s going to vote this November,” Clinton went on to say.
Machado won the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1996, which Trump was executive producer of. Machado reportedly gained 60 pounds after winning the contest, but she later said it was closer to 15. Rumors surfaced that she would have to give up her title, or lose weight. Trump admitted to the New York Times that he pushed her to lose weight, saying, “To that, I will plead guilty.”
In a 1996 interview that BuzzFeed posted on Tuesday, Howard Stern introduced the topic by saying, “The Miss Universe, it turns out, the woman who won last year, blows up to a fat pig. I mean, like obese,” while Trump can be heard laughing in the background.
In the interview, Trump said, “You know it was an amazing phenomenon. She weighed 118 when she won,” adding, “She was as beautiful a woman as I’ve ever seen.”
He then went on to say, “She gained about 55 pounds in a period of nine months. She was like an eating machine,” then quipped that she, “Ate a lot of everything,” when Stern questioned how she could gain that much weight in that time.
Machado spoke of Trump’s comments to Stern in an interview with Inside Edition in May. She said in the interview that Trump told her she needed to lose weight and even brought her to a gym with a media crew.
The Republican presidential nominee praised himself in the Stern interview for bringing her weight to the spotlight, saying, “It has become a major event.”
Trump said on Tuesday morning that while nothing Clinton did throughout the debate to that point had managed to get under his skin, the former secretary of state’s decision to bring up Machado did frustrate him.
And he went on to again attack Machado’s weight.
“That person was a Miss Universe person, and she was the worst we ever had. The worst, the absolute worst. She was impossible, and she was a Miss Universe contestant and ultimately a winner who they had a tremendously difficult time with as Miss Universe,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News’s “Fox and Friends.” “She was the winner, and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem. We had a real problem. Not only that, her attitude, and we had a real problem with her, so Hillary went back into the years and she found this girl. This was many years ago, and found the girl and talked about her like she was Mother Teresa and it wasn’t quite that way, but that’s okay. Hillary has to do what she has to do.”
Machado said during the press call Tuesday afternoon that she was trying to forget the “abuse” after the pageant, saying she subsequently spent four years suffering from eating disorders.
The former Miss Universe repeatedly offered her support for Clinton’s presidency, saying, “I’m with Mrs. Clinton until the end.”