Billy Bush speaks out about Trump tape

Former NBC host Billy Bush has spoken publicly for the first time in more than seven months about the 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which U.S. President Donald Trump bragged about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women. In an exclusive interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Bush said he regretted not changing the topic as Trump talked about grabbing women by the genitals. Instead, Bush laughed and egged him on.

“Looking back upon what was said on that bus,” Bush said, “I wish I had changed the topic. (Trump) liked TV and competition. I could have said, ‘Can you believe the ratings on whatever?’ But I didn’t have the strength of character to do it.”

Less than two weeks after the tape was leaked, Bush was suspended and then fired from NBC’s Today, with a multimillion-dollar severance package and a non-disclosure agreement.

Bush told the Hollywood Reporter he has seen the tape only three times. Every time, he said, he felt “totally and completely gutted.”

The Hollywood Reporter asked how it felt that Bush got fired over the tape while Trump became president. “I will admit that the irony is glaring,” Bush said.

Bush told the Hollywood Reporter that when the tape leaked his 15year-old daughter called him in tears from boarding school and asked him why he had laughed at the things Trump said on the bus. “It hit really hard,” Bush said, “and I stopped for a second, and I said, ‘I have no answer for that that’s any good. I am really sorry. That was Dad in a bad moment a long time ago.’ ”