Entertainment Tonight co-host Nancy O’Dell, who was unwittingly roped into the Donald Trump hot mic comments, is speaking out. In a 2005 videotape released Friday afternoon by the Washington Post, Trump is overheard saying he tried to “move on” O’Dell to the point of trying to have sex with her.
“You know, she was down on Palm Beach,” Trump says to Billy Bush who was O’Dell’s co-host on Access Hollywood at the time. “I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f— her. I moved on her very heavily… I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
“Politics aside, I’m saddened that these comments still exist in our society at all,” O’Dell said in a statement posted on ETOnline. “When I heard the comments yesterday, it was disappointing to hear such objectification of women. The conversation needs to change because no female, no person, should be the subject of such crass comments, whether or not cameras are rolling. Everyone deserves respect no matter the setting or gender. As a woman who has worked very hard to establish her career, and as a mom, I feel I must speak out with the hope that as a society we will always strive to be better.”
O’Dell began her TV career as a reporter and anchor at WPDE-TV in her home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She moved to WCBD-TV in Charleston before spending two years at NBC-owned WTVJ in Miami starting in 1993. She joined Access Hollywood in 1996 and left for Entertainment Tonight in 2009.