He may have given a brazen and bullying performance during the second US Presidential debate, threatening to jail his rival Hillary Clinton if he became President – but Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign is mired yet again in ever-deepening controversy.
Fresh allegations have surfaced that there is a wealth of unaired footage from The Apprentice show in which the Republican presidential candidate makes inappropriate, sexually explicit comments about contestants and crew members.
In particular, he is accused of having made lewd comments on the breast size of female contestants during breaks in filming the hugely popular show.
Reports from Associated Press (AP) claim that a staggering 20 former contestants on the show, as well as crew members, were the subject of inappropriate sexual comments made by Trump.
“If there was a break in the conversation, he would then look at one of the female cast members, saying, ‘You’re looking kind of hot today/ I love that dress on you’; then he would turn to one of the male cast members and say, ‘Wouldn’t you sleep with her?’ And then everyone would laugh,” a former crew member told AP. “There would be about 10 or 12 cameras rolling and getting that footage, which is why everybody was like, ‘This guy just doesn’t care’.”
Speaking off the record, one crew member claimed: “The Apprentice footage was super vaulted stuff, to keep it from getting into anyone’s hands. The game-show aspect meant that the footage was locked down super securely.”
As a result, the production team behind The Apprentice are now coming under intense pressure to release the contentious video footage of the self-made billionaire.
Trump’s campaign is already in deep crisis, following the release of footage in which he boasted about sexually molesting a woman on an episode of Access Hollywood. Overnight the Republican party leader Paul Ryan effectively withdrew his endorsement of the candidate, saying that he could no longer defend him.
Trump led the US version of The Apprentice from 2004 until 2015 and the producer, Mark Burnett, is the man with the keys to the vaults.
"As a producer on seasons one and two of The Apprentice I assure you: when it comes to the Trump tapes, there are far worse," said Bill Pruitt, an Emmy Award-winning producer, said of the Access Hollywood material.
Irish-American TV producer Chris Nee has stated that she was made to sign a non-disclosure contract with Burnett, which would prevent her from airing the footage. According to her version of events, the contract stipulated that she would be fined $5million if she were do to so. But Burnett says there was never an such a censorship contract, dismissing the claims as "completely and unequivocally false."
"Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice," said MGM, owners of the show, and Mr Burnett, in a joint statement. "Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM's ability to release such material.”
Burnett, who has the tapes, also denied claims made by Buzzfeed that he “is pro-Trump and has made clear to his teams that he will sue anyone who leaks.”
A statement released by his PR team said: “To be clear, as previously reported in the press, and as Mark Burnett has confirmed, he has consistently supported Democratic campaigns."