When soap opera actress Arianne Zucker heard the 2005 recording of Donald Trump speaking lewdly about her legs and his sexual aggression toward other women, she found his words offensive — but not at all surprising.
“Not with that type of personality, I wasn’t shocked,” she said in an interview on the “Today” show Thursday, “which is probably why it doesn’t mean a lot to me.”
Zucker, an actress on “Days of Our Lives” since 1998, is the woman wearing the fuchsia dress in the now infamous video and audio recording published last week by The Washington Post of Trump and former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush chatting on and off a bus parked outside the soap-opera set. In the recording, Trump, caught on a hot mic, can be heard telling Bush, among other things, how he tried to seduce a married woman by taking her furniture shopping.
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“I did try and f— her,” Trumps says, adding later: “I moved on her like a b—-, but I couldn’t get there.”
Eventually, Trump and Bush appear to notice Zucker, who is waiting to escort the men onto the set, where Trump was to perform a cameo with the actress’s character, Nicole Walker.
“Your girl’s hot as s—, in the purple,” says Bush, who, until the tape was released, was a newly minted co-host of NBC’s “Today” show.
“Whoa!” Trump says. “Whoa!”
“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says about Zucker. “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.”
He tells Bush that as a star, women let you “do anything,” even “grab them by the p—-.”
“You can do anything,” Trump says.
The men gawk and comment on Zucker’s legs before exiting the bus and greeting the actress, who, unaware of the appearance appraisal that had occurred just seconds before, welcomes them both politely.
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“Hello Mr. Trump,” she says, “pleasure to meet you.”
At the time of the recording, Trump was married to his current wife, Melania.
In her interview Thursday on “Today,” the soap star said she is still processing all that has transpired in the last week.
Share this articleShare“It feels very surreal to be in it,” she said. “I’m not quite sure I believe it yet.”
Trump has since issued a public apology about the comments, and dismissed the language as “locker room talk” during the second presidential debate last Sunday. When asked if she accepted the GOP nominee’s apology, Zucker paused to think, then said “that was an interesting apology.”
The actress said in the interview that she had not heard directly from Trump or his campaign.
She added that she plans to vote, but wouldn’t say for whom.
She does, however, believe emphatically that comments in the recording were distasteful.
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“They are offensive comments for women, period,” she said.
Bush, who has been suspended from his new job co-hosting “Today”and who is negotiating a separation agreement with NBC, has drawn nearly as much ire from Trump critics. They say Bush enabled and encouraged the lewd remarks by participating in the conversation. Bush has also apologized.
Zucker offered a neutral stance on Bush’s accountability during the interview Thursday.
“Who knows how he was feeling when he walked off the bus, or what he needed to do in the relationship,” the actress said. “Because when he came off the bus, along with Mr. Trump, I had no feeling but professional. That’s it.”
One of Bush’s attorney’s, Marshall Grossman, rationalized his behavior in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, claiming Bush, as an NBC employee, was in no position to challenge Trump, then a star on another NBC program, “The Apprentice.”
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“If Billy had been passive or responded ‘Shut the f— up’ to Trump, Billy would have been out of a job the next day,” Grossman told the Hollywood Reporter.
Amid the blowback for both Trump and Bush, Zucker said she is trying to use her role in the controversy to move the conversation forward, for other women and especially her 6-year-old daughter.
“I want to teach my daughter that if she ever gets put in a situation like Mommy is right now,” Zucker told “Today,” “that she will hold her head high as well.”
She hopes it will also encourage an open dialogue among men — young and old.
“I think young men can learn from this, of how not to be in front of women, or when they’re speaking about women,” the actress said.
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