Less than two weeks before the US election, former model Stacey Williams has said she met Donald Trump through the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has accused him of allegedly groping and sexually touching her.
She claims that Trump and Epstein engaged in a 'twisted game' with her and were 'really, really good friends' who 'spent a lot of time together'. Epstein killed himself in a New York prison cell as he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges.
Williams alleges that the presidential hopeful groped her in 1993, after Epstein suggested on a walk that they stop by to visit Trump at Trump Tower.
Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement responding to the allegations. She said, 'These allegations, made by a Barack Obama ex-activist and announced on a Harris campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false. It is obvious that this false story was fabricated by the Harris campaign.'
Here's everything you need to know about Trump's accuser.
Who is Stacey Williams?
Williams is a model from Dallas, Pennsylvania. She featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues from 1992 to 1998 and was also in the 40th anniversary issue in 2004.
She has also appeared in minor films including The Dogwalker and Gangster World and had a brief role in Jerry Maguire.
How does Stacey Williams know Donald Trump?
Williams alleges that moments after she arrived at Trump Tower with Epstein, he pulled her towards him and started groping her. She said he put his hands 'all over [her] breasts' as well as her waist and buttocks. The former model claims she felt 'deeply confused' and froze.
In a video published by The Guardian, Williams said: 'In 1992, my agent invited me to a dinner, to a restaurant in the Upper East Side of New York. And there were other models and the usual men, hangers-on, at this dinner. And one of the men who was sitting at this table was Jeffrey Epstein.
'And I had never heard of him or anything, but we got to know each other, and we talked a lot about Clinton and Gore. I enjoyed the fact that he was politically engaged and wasn't infantilising me and talking to me about that.'
She said, 'The next time that I saw Jeffrey was a few months later, in December of '92, at Donald Trump's Plaza Hotel Christmas party. And it became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together.
'After that, Jeffery Epstein expressed a lot of interest in me and we started seeing each other. When Jeffrey and I would talk, he mentioned Trump frequently, he was clearly a close friend and they were spending a lot of time together.'
It is then that Williams alleges she was re-introduced to Trump and that he groped her.
'He put his hands all over my breasts, my waist, my butt and I froze. And I froze because I was so deeply confused about what was happening – because the hands were moving all over me, yet these two men were like smiling at one another and continuing on, in their conversation.'
The former model continued, 'We – Jeffrey and I left and I got into the elevator with him and I felt this like – he didn't look at me, he didn't speak to me and I felt this like, seething rage around him. His whole energy shifted. And when we got down to the sidewalk, he looked at me and started just berating me.
'He kept saying "why did you let him do that? Why did you let him put his hands all over you?" And he made me feel so disgusting and I remember at that moment, being so utterly confused.'
The former model said being questioned by Epstein made her feel 'humiliated'. 'I was someone who really prided myself as being sort of one of the top models who was problematic – because I fought back against the predators in the industry, I defended fellow models on the streets of Paris when we would be grabbed or harassed. So how did I let that happen?'
She then added that the experience made her feel 'sick to [her] stomach' and 'like a piece of meat'.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).