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| Twenty years later, a fierce and fabulous Alicia Machado — the first Miss Universe while Donald Trump owned the pageant — has overcome insults she said Trump slung at her. (Photo: Getty Images) |
A former
Miss Universe winner from Venezuela became an overnight sensation when
Hillary Clinton mentioned her by name in an impassioned moment during
the first presidential debate on Monday evening, calling out the GOP
nominee for his bullying.
And
it just got worse. Trump said the morning after the debate that he
doesn’t regret publicly criticizing Alicia Machado’s body.
“She was the worst we ever had,” he told Fox and Friends. “She was a winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and we had a real problem. We had a real problem with her.”
“He called her Miss Piggy,” Clinton announced at the end of the debate, referencing accusations made during an interview Machado gave to Inside Edition earlier
this year. “Then he called her Miss Housekeeping because she was
Latina,” Clinton continued. After the debate, Clinton’s team posted a
video to the Democratic presidential candidate’s official Twitter,
offering further information about Machado, now 39:
Donald Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping."
Her name is Alicia Machado. #DebateNight
“I
was the first Miss Universe after Trump bought the pageant,”
Machado, says in the video. “He was overwhelming. I was very scared of
him. He’d tell me ‘You look ugly’ or ‘You look fat.’ Sometimes he’d play
with me and say, ‘Hello, Miss Piggy. Hello, Miss Housekeeping,'”
Machado recalls. Although she gamely participated in many ad campaigns
and “earned the company a lot of money,” she claims she was never
compensated the 10 percent of the profits she was contractually
obligated to receive for her promotional work.
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#TeEnteraste ? ¿SE CORONA EN LA POLÍTICA? @hillaryclinton trae a colación el caso de #AliciaMachado en defensa de los comentarios de #Trump en contra de las mujeres, específicamente cuando llamó a la ex #MissUniverso ¿MissPiggy?... #Clinton le aseguró a #DonaldTrump que @machadooficial votará en las #elecciones de noviembre, porque ya es ciudadana. #lalupa #entretenimiento #debatepresidencial #presidentialdebate #Showbiz #politica #democratas #republicanos #mujer
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Then
came the weight gain. According to the video and Machado’s testimony,
Trump — producer of the Miss Universe pageant at the time — not only
threatened to take her crown away but also cruelly invited members of
the media to witness and document her workout routine. According to the New York Times,
Machado said, “I told the president of Miss Universe, a very sweet
woman, I said I need some time to recuperate, to rest, to exercise, to
eat right. I asked them to bring me a doctor to help me — to have a
special diet and get exercise, and they said yes. They took me to New
York, installed me in a hotel. The next day, they took me to the gym,
and I’m exposed to 90 media outlets. Donald Trump was there. I had no
idea that would happen.” Machado claims she was humiliated and felt
“like a lab rat,” she recalls in the Twitter video. “It had turned into a
circus, the joke of Miss Fat Universe.”
Trump,
took outright verbal jabs at her too, shaming her for her weight gain
and telling reporters, while on camera, “So this is somebody that likes
to eat.” According to CNN,
he added at the time, “Some people when they have pressure eat too
much. Like me. Like Alicia.” Machado claims that his passive-aggressive,
piercing words changed the course of her life and led to her
life-threatening eating disorders. “I wouldn’t eat, and I would still
see myself as fat, because a powerful man said so,” she says in the
video voice-over.
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| Alicia Machado campaigns for Hillary Clinton in Miami. (Photo: Getty Images) |
The New York Times cleared up any confusion about whether or
not Trump’s stunts were calculated and Machado’s title was at stake if
she did not slim down. “Mr. Trump said he had pushed her to lose weight.
‘To that, I will plead guilty,’ he said, expressing no regret for his
tactics,” the publication states.
Two
decades out from the incident, Machado seems much more confident,
though what she says was prolonged public shaming left emotional scars.
“Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone to a lot of psychologists to combat
this,” she says of the abuse, according to CNN. “This is a man who
doesn’t realize the damage he causes,” she says on video. “He bears many
grudges and harbors a deep racism, and he is convinced there are lesser
human beings than him.”
And
after all these years, Machado has formed a strong alliance with her
biggest public supporter — Hillary Clinton. She has even actively
campaigned for Clinton, according to CNN. Grateful for the candidate’s
support, she tweeted at Clinton in Spanish after Monday’s debate:
“Thank
you, Mrs. Hillary Clinton — your respect for women and our differences
make you great! I’m with you!”
Gracias señora @HillaryClinton su respeto a
las mujeres y nuestras diferencias la hacen grande! Estoy con usted!
Machado
has also obtained her U.S. citizenship in recent months. She may not
ever be able to go back in time to defend herself against Trump’s
bullying, but she can now make a strong statement — and hopefully a
difference. “Now I’m strong. I am an American citizen, and I’m going to vote,” she’s said.
“Her
name is Alicia Machado, and she has become a U.S. citizen,” Clinton
echoed at the debate, to a chorus of applause, as Trump continued to
talk over her. “And you can bet she’s going to vote this November.”
Published on May 19, 2016
A former Miss Universe says she was publicly humiliated by Donald Trump. Alicia Machado said to Inside Edition: "He may be a great businessman but he's a horrible person." The Venezuelan native was crowned Miss Universe in 1996 when she was just 19-years-old. Within months, she gained up to 50 pounds. Trump insisted she lost weight, calling her "an eating machine" and he took her to work out in a gym packed with media. Machado says she felt publicly shamed and he called her "Miss Piggy."
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