In the early 1980s, NaKina Carr was working in New York for Oscar de la Renta and was backstage in the models’ dressing room at one of his fashion shows when she heard Trump’s name mentioned for the first time. She was getting ready when all of a sudden she heard someone shout: “Put your robes on, here he comes!”

At 21, the Texas native was already on the older side for a catwalk model, who generally start working when they are in their teens, but she was new to New York and had no idea what was going on. “I didn’t know what they were talking about … but suddenly everyone threw on their dressing robes,” Carr said, speaking publicly about her memories of Trump for the first time. Carr asked another woman what was wrong, and she pointed to a man across the room. “She said: ‘He’s the money man. He can do whatever he wants … Unless you’re a gold digger, you avoid him at all costs.’”

Trump walked in as if he owned the place, according to Carr’s account, with a pregnant Ivana, his first wife, trailing behind him. “He threw his arms wide open and said: ‘OK now ladies, drop ’em,’” Carr said. “The one thing I’ll always remember is the dejected look on Ivana’s face in the dressing room. I thought how horrible, that he would treat her in this way.”

…. models were encouraged to attend dinners that became occasions for “men to pick up girls”. “You’d go to these things and look pretty, give the men attention,” Love said. She was 16 at the time and part of the Elite model agency’s “New Faces” campaign. “We might as well have been called ‘fresh meat’.” Love recalled a dinner with Trump. “This time it was a private area, a big table and lots of girls – I’d say around 10 to 15 of us, all between the ages of 14 and 18,” she said. “It was just us models, Trump and [Elite founder] John [Casablancas]. We were all underage, but we were offered drinks.” Love said she went home early, but other girls stayed.

Trump was often seen with Casablancas. He hosted events for Elite’s modelling contests at his New York properties and provided lodging for the contestants. Eli Nessa had just turned 17 and was representing Norway during one such Elite competition hosted by Trump’s hotel in the early 90s. In addition to the events for the competition, the women were expected to attend several nights of parties. “There were all these older men,” she said. “It was so seedy.” Nessa was accompanied by her agent, but other women appeared to be alone. “I remember this Italian girl, extremely naive, who couldn’t speak any English. She was easy prey. They were all around her,” Nessa said. “We were a bunch of kids, just put there with all these older men.”

Heather Braden was also an Elite model and, in the late 90s, alleges that she was instructed to go to a party in a mansion on one of the islands off Miami Beach. Trump was going to be there, she was told. ….. The models were handed papers. “I presume they were NDAs for us to sign,” Braden recalled. They ignored the papers and walked into a big room where there were about 50 models. In her mid-20s, Braden was one of the oldest women there. Many were from eastern Europe and didn’t speak English, ….

They found the party odd. There was no DJ, no food, and no bartender – though there were drinks, Braden remembers. “It was very awkward from the beginning,” she said years later. “Fifty females in this room, no real hosts. Very unusual. And then down this large staircase, in front of all of us, there was Donald Trump and behind him there were three actors, 40s, maybe 50s. I don’t want to name them because they’re all still around.” The actors were famous. “They came down the stairs and spread out like sharks among the girls,” who had broken up into little clusters throughout the room. “Obviously, some of these younger girls were starstruck.”

Braden said she had been in the industry long enough to understand what was happening. “Clearly, we were there for one reason. We were just pieces of meat.” At a typical fashion industry party, there would be a mix of people, men of different ages, male models, men in the business. Not here. Braden believed that this party had been set up specifically for Trump and the three actors. “This was not eye candy,” she said. “Sometimes you’re brought to these big parties like that, but this was different.”....
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In addition to Casablancas, whose marriage ended after he had an affair with a 16-year-old Stephanie Seymour and who later married another one of his models when she was 17, Trump’s social circle in the early 90s included Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who allegedly ran a sex ring of underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor and in July 2019 was charged with two federal counts of sex trafficking before being found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide in August. Trump once said of Epstein: “Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”