Another woman has added her story to the ever-growing chorus of allegations that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her. Former model Amy Dorris has become the latest to accuse the president of assault or sexual harassment, saying that Trump forced himself on her in his VIP suite at the 1997 US Open tennis tournament, which she attended with her then-boyfriend.
In an interview with The Guardian, Dorris revealed details of the alleged assault. She was 24 at the time, and she corroborated her account with photos from the event, her ticket to the tournament, and multiple people who confirmed she had shared her story with them over the years, including her mother and her therapist. According to Dorris, the incident occurred behind a partition in the suite, when she came out of the bathroom to find Trump, then 51 and married to Marla Maples, waiting for her.
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“He just shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off. And then that’s when his grip became tighter and his hands were very gropey and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything. I was in his grip, and I couldn’t get out of it,” Dorris told The Guardian. “I don’t know what you call that when you’re sticking your tongue just down someone’s throat. But I pushed it out with my teeth. I was pushing it. And I think I might have hurt his tongue.”
Dorris’ boyfriend at the time, Jason Binn, was friends with Trump and the couple spent the weekend with him in New York. Dorris says that after the first day, when Trump violated her, she tried to dress more conservatively the second, hoping it would discourage him from coming onto her. It did not. According to Dorris, Trump “came on very strong right away.”
“When you invade someone’s space, it doesn’t matter if you were raped, it’s sexual assault, and it’s not OK,” she told The Guardian. “You don’t touch someone unless they want to be touched. And I did nothing to encourage him to touch me.”
Trump has denied the allegations, though this is not his first time being in this position.
Dorris’ story follows a pattern shared by at least 21 other women, one in which Trump approaches women and feels entitled to their bodies, groping them in public or semi-public locations. Many of those women have been models, like Dorris. Writer E. Jean Carroll claims Trump raped her in a department store dressing room, while other locations Trump has been accused of groping or forcibly kissing women without their consent include on a tour at Mar-A-Lago, backstage at the David Letterman Show, at the 1998 US Open, at a charity golf tournament, and at a Manhattan club, to name a few.
Dorris first reported her allegations to The Guardian 15 months ago but says she is coming forward now as an example to her 12-year-old daughters. “I want them to know that you don’t let anybody do anything to you that you don’t want,” she said. “And I’d rather be a role model. I want them to see that I didn’t stay quiet, that I stood up to somebody who did something that was unacceptable."