Nancy O’Dell returned to Entertainment Tonight on Monday evening and addressed Donald Trump‘s lewd comments about her from his 2005 conversation with her former Access Hollywood colleague Billy Bush.
“I feel that it’s very important that I address you all directly. As a journalist for 26 years now, it is my job to bring you news about others, rather than turning the focus on myself,” O’Dell, 50, said during Monday’s show.
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“But by now, I’m sure that most of you have heard the audio tape which became national news and part of the presidential race. My name was mentioned and, unfortunately, the release of it has thrown me into the middle of the political arena of which I didn’t ask to be a part,” she continued.
In Trump and Bush’s leaked conversation, the GOP nominee revealed that he tried to make a move on O’Dell. “I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I moved on her very heavily,” Trump said in the tapes released by The Washington Post on Friday. “I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. Then all of a sudden, I see her — she’s now got the big phony t— and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
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Though he issued an apology video, Trump, 70, dismissed his sexist comments about groping women as simply “locker room talk” during Sunday’s town hall-style debate.
In her response on ET, O’Dell concluded: “I released a statement on Saturday and I truly mean what I said. There is no room for objectification of women, or anybody for that matter, not even in the ‘locker room.’ “
This is the E.T. host’s second response to Trump. She previously issued a statement on Saturday, saying she was “saddened that these comments still exist in our society at all.”
“When I heard the comments yesterday, it was disappointing to hear such objectification of women. The conversation needs to change because no female, no person, should be the subject of such crass comments, whether or not cameras are rolling,” O’Dell’s statement read. “Everyone deserves respect no matter the setting or gender. As a woman who has worked very hard to establish her career, and as a mom, I feel I must speak out with the hope that as a society we will always strive to be better.”
