Sad he got ‘grab’-bagged
Trump’s vid wingman: ‘Wish I’d changed topic’
BILLY BUSH says he’s gone through a “roller coaster” ride in the seven months since a graphic video of him and then-candidate Donald Trump leaked.
The now infamous tape, of the presidential candidate’s “grab ’em by the p---y” comment, spelled the end of Bush’s “Today” hosting gig.
Trump was elected President a month later.
The 45-year-old TV host, who was suspended within days and left NBC a week later with a multimillion-dollar severance package, said he planned an on-air apology. But he never made it back onto TV after the video of him yukking it up with Trump leaked.
Instead, Trump’s haunts him now.
“Looking back upon what was said on that bus, I wish I had changed the topic,” Bush told the Hollywood Reporter. “(Trump) liked TV and competition. I could’ve said, ‘Can you believe the ratings on whatever?’ But I didn’t have the strength of character to do it.”
The TV personality said he comment doesn’t know if the President regrets the comment, but Bush denied Trump’s excuse that it was just locker room talk.
“I’m in a lot of locker rooms, I am an athlete, and no, that is not the type of conversation that goes on or that I’ve participated in,” he said.
But Bush did participate with Trump.
“Your girl’s hot as s---, in the purple,” Bush said to Trump in the video, a reference to actress Arianne Zucker, the woman escorting them on a soap opera set.
Bush is the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush. Though he said he’d never heard Trump speak like that about women before, he called the then-“Apprentice” host a “provocateur” who likes to “captivate an audience.”
Bush has only watched the 2005 tape three times, he said, and still has no idea who leaked it.
“I am not grateful for the moment,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “But I’m grateful for what I’ve gotten out of it. I’m grateful that it hit me all the way to my core.”
He also said “the irony is glaring” that he was fired and Trump was elected President, but he’s taken advice to turn the experience into a positive.
“I’ve come out of this with a deeper understanding of how women can connect to the feeling of having to fight extra hard for an even playing field. The ground isn’t even. Maybe it’s improving, but still it isn’t even,” he told the magazine. “When a woman watches that tape — and this is what really hit me — they may be asking themselves, ‘Is that what happens when I walk out of a room? When I walk out of a meeting, is that what they’re saying about me? Are they sizing me up?’ I can’t live with that. If a moment like that arose again, I would shut it down quickly.”
In April, Bush teased a hopeful return to television, posting a silly rendition of “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” from the musical “Grease.”
But for now, he’s still at home with his daughters Lillie, 12, Mary, 16, and Josie, 18. He went on a spiritual retreat for group therapy. And he said he hasn’t spoken with Trump since before he announced his presidential campaign. If he did, “I’d just say thanks and move on,” Bush told the Hollywood Reporter. “There is nothing I need from him.”