Is it true that Donald Trump owns Miss Universe? The 66th Miss Universe Pageant airs on 26th November 2017, and with that many have been wondering if current president Trump owns Miss Universe.
Donald Trump’s History Of Miss Universe
Trump bought the Miss Universe pageant in 1996. Later, several contestants came forward claiming he forcefully entered the women’s dressing rooms during his reign.
2001’s Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon said,
He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.
Dixon also revealed that the pageant organization encouraged all the contestants to bestow attention to Trump whenever he was there.
The former Miss Arizona said,
To have the owner come waltzing in, when we’re naked, or half-naked, in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention…
Is Donald Trump Still The Owner of Miss Universe?
Donald Trump isn’t the owner of Miss Universe Pageant. When he accused Mexicans of being criminals and rapists during his 2016 presidential campaign against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he lost broadcast sponsors like NBC and ABC
Trump was compelled to sell his ownership in 2015 after the broadcast sponsors pulled out, which he did to WME. That ended Trump’s two decades long Miss Universe ownership along with other pageants like Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.
And when the Access Hollywood tape came out in 2016 where he was caught on tape talking about women in a degrading manner, Trump got into more water. His partner in the conversation, Billy Bush, got fired from NBC shortly after.
In a 2005 interview with host Howard Stern, Trump bragged about his exclusive access to the Miss Universe contestants.
Trump said, “It could be a conflict of interest. … But, you know, it’s the kind of thing you worry about later, you tend to think about the conflict a little bit later on.’’
More revelations came out when Miss California Carrie Prejean released her memoir in 2009. There she wrote how Trump would ask the contestants to judge each other’s appearances causing riffs between them.
Prejean wrote, ‘’
Donald Trump walked out with his entourage and inspected us closer than any general ever inspected a platoon. He would stop in front of a girl, look her up and down, and say, “Hmmm.” Then he would go on and do the same thing to the next girl. He took notes on a little pad as he went along. After he did this, Trump said: “O.K. I want all the girls to come forward.
The former Miss California further added,
It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress ‘The Donald.
As per Rolling Stone, the Trump Campaign released a statement in 2015 that read, “Mr. Trump has a fantastic record of empowering women throughout his career, and a more accurate story would be to show how he’s been a positive influence in the lives of so many.”
