Ivanka Trump Breaks Silence on Dad Donald’s 2005 Lewd Comments: ‘They’re Inappropriate and Offensive’
Ivanka Trump isn't making excuses for her father Donald Trump's lewd comments about women in a 2005 conversation with then-Access Hollywood host, Billy Bush.
Ivanka, 34, has broken her silence on the headline-making leaked video, calling her father's comments "inappropriate and offensive."
"My father's comments were clearly inappropriate and offensive and I'm glad that he acknowledged this fact with an immediate apology to my family and the American people," Ivanka said in a statement to Fast Company magazine.
Ivanka sat down for an in-depth interview with the business magazine two weeks prior to the scandal, when she got candid about the scrutiny her father has faced since deciding to run for president.
"The greatest comfort I have is the fact that I know my father," the mother of three says about all of the intense criticism. "Most of the people who write about him don't. I do. So that gives me an ability to shrug off the things that I read about him that are wrong."
When the magazine brings up comments that she's her father's "surrogate wife," Ivanka cuts the interviewer off.
"[It's] deeply offensive," she says. "I feel that that's a very sexist thing to say."
Meanwhile, Trump's wife, 46-year-old Melania, also spoke out about her husband's comments in an interview on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, which aired Monday. Melania suggested that her husband may have been egged on by Bush to continue making lewd remarks, which she referred to as "boy talk."
"And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on -- it was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on," she told host Anderson Cooper. "He was led on -- like, egged on -- from the host to say dirty and bad stuff."
Melania said she was "surprised" at her husband's comments, which were said shortly after he married her in January 2005.
"I said to my husband that, you know, the language was inappropriate," she shared. "It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know. I was surprised, because I don't know that person that would talk that way, and that he would say that kind of stuff in private."
However, the fallout from the tape continues. Since the 2005 tape was leaked, multiple women have come forward accusing 70-year-old Trump of inappropriate sexual conduct, all of which he and his campaign have vigorously denied.
WATCH: Melania Trump Blames Billy Bush for Egging Donald Trump On in Lewd 2005 Tape
Meanwhile, Bush, 45, officially left his gig at the Today show on Monday after being initially suspended for his role in the tape.
"I am deeply grateful for the conversations I've had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues," the father of three said in a statement to ET shortly after his termination from Today. "I look forward to what lies ahead."
Watch below:
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