E. Jean Carroll Sexual Assault and Decades of Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Overview

E. Jean Carroll, a well-known advice columnist for Elle magazine, encountered Donald Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. According to her account — later confirmed by a federal jury — he led her to a dressing room, pinned her against a wall, and sexually assaulted her. She told two friends about the assault at the time; both corroborated her account in court.

Carroll did not publicly share her account until 2019, when she published it in New York Magazine as part of a broader essay about sexual violence. She has said she feared she would not be believed and that the experience was too painful to discuss while Trump was a private figure; once he was president, she felt an obligation to speak.

Trump's Response and Defamation

Trump's immediate response to Carroll's published account was to deny it, state that she was "not my type," and claim he had never met her — a claim that was immediately contradicted by a photograph showing the two together at a social event in the late 1980s or early 1990s, accompanied by their then-spouses.

Trump continued to publicly call Carroll a liar for years. After a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in May 2023 — and awarded Carroll $5 million — he called the verdict "a disgrace" and continued his false denials publicly. A second jury in January 2024 found his post-verdict statements to be additional defamation and awarded Carroll $83.3 million more — one of the largest defamation verdicts in American history.

The Pattern

Carroll is not alone. The Washington Post, NBC News, and other outlets have documented accounts from more than 25 women accusing Trump of unwanted sexual touching or assault spanning from the 1970s through the 2000s. Trump denied all accounts. The Access Hollywood tape — on which Trump bragged about committing exactly the acts the women described — was dismissed by Trump as "locker room banter."

The pattern documented across the accounts — entering dressing rooms uninvited, kissing women without consent, groping — is strikingly consistent across accusers who did not know each other and came forward at different times.