Since 1996, when she alleges she was raped by Donald Trump, E Jean Carroll has been living a kind of dual existence, she said during harrowing testimony in a civil trial at the US Federal Courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday.
There was the public persona; the successful writer, television host and Ask E Jean advice columnist who was always upbeat, optimistic and trying to help others.
“And then I have a private self, and that’s the one that can’t admit out loud that there has been any suffering,” she testified.
Ms Carroll described in graphic detail the alleged rape by the former president in a dressing room on the 6th floor of the luxury Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
The alleged incident caused her to suffer waves of crippling anxiety attacks, left her incapable of forming romantic relationships, and fearful of the flirtatious behaviour she and Mr Trump engaged in prior to the alleged assault, she said.
When an excerpt from her memoir appeared in New York magazine in 2019 first describing the alleged sexual assault, he then “destroyed” her good name, she testified.
Ms Carroll, 79, is seeking damages for defamation and battery. Mr Trump, 76, denies the rape took place.
‘I’m here to try to get my life back’
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it he said it didn’t happen,” Ms Carroll told jurors moments after taking the stand. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”
Fighting back tears at times, Ms Carroll took several long pauses under more than five hours of questioning from her attorney Michael Ferrara.
She was asked about the first time she met Mr Trump. She thought it was at a Saturday Night Live party in 1987 with their spouses at the time, John Johnson and Ivana Trump.
Ms Carroll had been nominated for an Emmy Award that year for her writing on an SNL episode hosted by William Shatner.
She recalled being attracted to him at that first meeting, and that he was very “personable”.
On a later occasion, Ms Carroll said they had waved at one another across the street, but didn’t exchange words.
It would be several years before she allegedly crossed paths with Mr Trump again.
She struggled to pinpoint the exact date, but recalled she was wearing her most expensive wool dress, thick tights and four inch heels.
The light of the early evening led her to believe it was spring, and she testified it was most probably on a Thursday evening in 1996 after she had finished filming an episode of her cable television show Ask E Jean at Fort Lee, New Jersey.
She had driven into the city to do some shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, and had plans to meet friends for dinner that evening.
Not finding anything suitable to buy, she was leaving through a revolving exit on 58th St when she recognised Mr Trump on the other side of the door. He put his hand up, the “universal sign for stop,” Ms Carroll told the court.
They recognised one another, he as “that real estate tycoon” and she as “that advice lady”.
He told her he had come to look for a gift for a girl, she said. “I asked ‘how old is she?’ He said ‘how old are you?’”
Ms Carroll told him she was 52. He replied: “You are so old.”
She found the banter hilarious, she said, and they wandered around the 1st floor looking at handbags and hats.
Mr Trump then suggested they take the escalator up to the lingerie section on the 6th floor.
“He was very talkative, he told me he was thinking of buying Bergdorf Goodman.”
Ms Carroll said she was “enchanted”.
When they reached the deserted lingerie section, Mr Trump picked up a grey see-through bodysuit, she said.
“He held it up and said ‘go try this on’,” she said.
“I had no intention of putting it on,” she said, and suggested it was more his colour. “He was having a very good time and so was I, and the idea was very funny and I could just picture Donald Trump putting this piece of see-through lingerie on over his pants.
“He said ‘let’s try this on’ and motioned to the dressing room. I saw it as a Saturday Night Live sketch, I had written a sketch very similar to this scene.”
The pair continued flirting, she said, as he led Ms Carroll by the arm to the dressing room.
As they approached, she said: “I thought it was getting funnier and funnier.”
When they walked into the opening dressing room, he immediately shut the door, she said. She pushed her hard against the wall so that her head banged against the wall.
Ms Carroll said Mr Trump pulled down her tights and inserted his fingers into her vagina.
“It was extremely painful,” Ms Carroll said. “It was a horrible feeling. He put his hand inside me and curled his finger. As I sit here today, I can still feel it.”
After a long pause, she added: “I always think back to why I had to get myself in that situation.”
With adrenalin pouring through her body, she said, she fought back with all her might. She told the court she was strong, and her four inch heels elevated her height to about six foot one, she estimated, almost as tall as Mr Trump, who is six foot two.
Weighing just 120 pounds, Mr Trump had at least 100 pounds on her, she said. She raised a leg and managed to break free, and left the dressing room about three minutes after entering, she said.
Ms Carroll said that throughout the alleged assault she was confused to what was happening, and “didn’t want to make a scene”. “I didn’t want to make him angry at me.”
“Something light and fun and comedic and a great story to tell everyone I was having dinner with that night, and it turned very dark.”
In shock as she left the store, she said she called her close friend Lisa Birnbach to tell her what had happened.
That night, she was “extremely rattled”. “I didn’t know who I was.”
Ms Carroll later confided in TV anchor Carol Martin, who she said told her that Mr Trump had 200 lawyers and would “bury her”.
She didn’t see a therapist or even write it down in her diary, which was a place exclusively for happy things, she said.
Ms Carroll said she blamed herself for years, and buried it deep inside, promising never to speak of it again with the two friends.
‘I’ve regretted this one hundred times’
Under questioning from her attorney Mr Ferrera, Ms Carroll said it never crossed her mind to report the incident to police.
Her boss at the America’s Talking cable network, a precursor to MSNBC, was Roger Ailes, the powerful TV executive who went on to found Fox News, and was close friends with Mr Trump.
The jury was played an interview Mr Ailes, who died in 2017, conducted with his longtime friend for his cable show Straight Forward in 1995.
She felt certain that she would have been fired by Mr Ailes, and lose her advice column at Elle, if she had come forward.
Ms Carroll told how she hadn’t had sexual intercourse since 1996, and had been “obnoxious” towards a potential love interest who her friends had tried to set her up with.
As Mr Trump’s profile grew when he began running for the presidency in 2015, she said she was able to tune out memories of the assault.
“I could get strong, or I could go and live in a locked room,” she said.
Ms Carroll denied that her decision to write about the encounter was politically motivated, and that she had enjoyed watching The Apprentice. “It was beautifully produced,” she said, but when asked about the host, said: “He’s vile”.
Ms Carroll would write in her 2019 memoir that she suffered “very little” from the alleged assault. She explained in court that was her “invincible” public self, never wanting to admit weakness.
If she ever received a message from a reader who had been sexually assaulted, Ms Carroll said she would always advise them to go to the police and see a therapist.
But she admitted she had not taken her own advice on board.
“I’m not as smart as I think I am,” she said.
Towards the end of her testimony, Ms Carroll said the support she had received since filing the lawsuit against Mr Trump had “buoyed me up”, even while she had been “swamped” by thousands of threatening messages.
“I’ve regretted this one hundred times, but in the end being able to get my day in court finally is everything to me. So I’m happy,” she said, finally breaking down in tears.
Ms Carroll’s testimony will continue on Thursday, before cross examination.
