Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he helped save Alicia Machado's job as Miss Universe. (AP Photo/John Locher)
This story has been updated.
Donald Trump sought Wednesday to put to rest the controversy over his treatment of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, whose weight gain he publicly disparaged, stating during an interview that in fact he “saved her job.”
"I saved her job because they wanted to fire her for putting on so much weight,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News Wednesday. “And it is a beauty contest, you know. I mean, say what you want, they know what they're getting into. It's a beauty contest. And I said don't do that.”
Trump is accused of having called Machado "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping" after she gained weight in the months after she won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996. He claimed at the time that she had gained 60 pounds — she said it was 19 pounds — and at one point followed her with reporters and cameras at a gym in New York, where he held a news conference about her weight.
The controversy has become an enormous political liability for Trump, who has been frequently accused by his critics of misogyny. For days, footage of Trump inviting reporters and cameras to monitor Machado working out has circulated on television.
“We’ve tried diet, spa, a trainer, incentives. Forget it, the way she’s going, she’d eat the whole gymnasium,” Trump told Newsweek at the time.
Trump repeated several times Wednesday on Fox that he had in fact saved Machado's job, and bemoaned that he was now being criticized.
"They wanted to fire her. I saved her job because I said that's going to be ruinous. And I’ve done that with a number of the other young ladies, where I've saved their job,” he said.
"And you know what happened? Look what I get out of it. I get nothing," Trump added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/28/trump-on-miss-universe-weight-controversy-i-saved-her-job/