Melania Trump Reportedly Had a Surprising Role in Donald Trump's 'Access Hollywood' Controversy

Donald Trump’s hush money case is reviving stories that the press had put to rest during the 2016 presidential election cycle. The former president’s Access Hollywood scandal, where he suggested that sexual assault was OK if you are famous, was dusted off during former attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony in New York City.

Cohen alleged that he paid $130,000 to adult star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence because of her reported affair with Donald Trump. The financial exchange came right around the time the Access Hollywood tape made a very public appearance, so the behind-the-scenes negotiations were crucial in the final days of his presidential campaign. Cohen revealed that Donald Trump wasn’t the only one trying to get the negative headlines to go away, Melania Trump reportedly crafted a PR message for her husband.

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“The spin he wanted put on it was that this is locker-room talk,” Cohen said on the witness stand on Monday, per The Cut. “Something that Melania had recommended, or at least he told me that’s what Melania had thought it was and use that in order to get control over the story and to minimize its impact on him and his campaign.” The former attorney’s claims sound similar to the statement Donald Trump released in October 2016, via Associated Press: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

Melania even went to bat for her husband on CNN, telling Anderson Cooper, “I believe my husband. I believe my husband. This was all organized from the opposition. And with the details … did they ever check the background of these women? They don’t have any facts.” Even though she was “surprised” by her husband’s language and believes he was “egged on” by host Billy Bush, she still leaned into the narrative that she reportedly crafted behind closed doors. “I heard many different stuff – boys talk,” she added. “The boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, ‘Oh, this and that’ and talking about the girls. But yes, I was surprised, of course.”

That so-called “locker-room talk” involving Donald Trump and Bush bantering back and forth was recorded in 2005, just months after he married Melania. He was bragging about a woman, who was not his wife, and the alleged moves he made on her. That was before he saw Days of Our Lives star Arianne Zucker, where he made some crude comments about her to Bush. He asked for breath mints, “just in case I start kissing her,” but of course, he wasn’t done. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Donald Trump said on the tape. “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p***y You can do anything.”

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