Trump wanted curbs on dark skinned beauty contestants, authors claim
DONALD Trump vetoed darkskinned women if there were ‘too many’ at his Miss Universe pageants, a new book claims.
an anonymous member of staff at the beauty contest said the President would ‘make changes’ if there were too many ‘women of colour’. a colleague added: ‘He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. others were too ethnic.’
The book, Russian Roulette, also claims the US leader would veto women who ‘had snubbed his advances’ and it reveals the peculiar but precise demands he made from organisers of each pageant.
Staff would have to set up a special room for Mr Trump filled with his favourite snacks, including white Tic Tac sweets and Diet Coke, claim authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn.
The room should be ‘immaculate’ and have no ‘distracting’ pictures. ‘He required unscented soap and hand towels rolled, not folded,’ says the book. In the room he would peruse videos of contestants, ‘par- ticularly footage of the women in gowns and swimsuits’, it is claimed. The pageant was owned by the tycoon between 1996 and 2015. as he reviewed the judges’ decisions, it is alleged Mr Trump would frequently throw out their selections and replace them with women he preferred.
‘He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned. He had a particular type of woman,’ a staff member told the authors. The President, who has twice married a model from Eastern Europe, had a preference for women from the region, said the source.
Insiders said Paula Shugart, the president of the Miss Universe organisation, would occasionally challenge his choices. ‘If he didn’t like a woman because she looked too ethnic, you could sometimes persuade him by telling him she was a princess and married to a football player,’ said one of her staff.
The 2013 contest in Moscow has taken on a central significance in the row over the President’s connections with Russia.