• In an October 2022 deposition, Donald Trump claimed that E. Jean Carroll said "rape was sexy." 
  • Trump was misrepresenting comments Carroll made about why she doesn't like to use the word rape in a 2019 interview.
  • Carroll, who has accused Trump of sexual assault, is suing him for defamation after he said she was lying.

Former President Donald Trump claimed that E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of sexual assault, said that "rape was sexy" and "indicated that she loved it" when he was deposed in connection to her defamation lawsuit in October.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan unsealed a portion of Trump's deposition on Friday after his lawyers lost a bid to keep them private. 

Carroll, the longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, is suing Trump for defamation after he said she made up a rape allegation about him to sell her memoir. He denies having had any sexual contact with her.

In the October deposition, Trump misrepresented comments Carroll made about the allegation in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until the commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be raped," Trump said.

Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan then asked the former president: "So, sir, I just want to confirm: It's your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?"

He responded: "Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place."

Trump repeated the claim that Carroll described rape as sexy several times and suggested that Cooper was in a "panic" over her comments, so he called for a commercial break.

In the 2019 interview, Carroll told Cooper that she did not like to use the word rape because it "carries so many sexual connotations" and that "most people think of rape as being sexy" and "think of the fantasies."

By comparison, she said that her encounter with the former president "was not sexual. It just hurt."

Carroll accused Trump of raping her in an article for New York Magazine in June 2019. She claimed he assaulted her in a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury Fifth Avenue department store, in the mid-1990s. 

Trump strongly refuted the claim, and in response, Carroll sued him for defamation, claiming that his calling her a liar negatively impacted her reputation and career. 

During Trump's often combative deposition, carried out on October 19, 2022, at Mar-a-Lago, the former president called Carroll's lawyer a "political operative" and "a disgrace" and threatened to sue her.

If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673) or visit its website to receive confidential support.