Michael Gross (how unfortunate) knows a thing or two about Donald Tump. He has, after all, been covering the real estate mogul since 1985.

And what a ride he has taken:

I’ve been covering Trump since… I worked for The New York Times’ women’s pages. He endorsed one of my books, about real estate, and was a character in two more of them. He talked to me about sex and substances and the substance of the arena in which he made his name, real estate. I published all of it. In 1999, he told me that in 1995 he’d been worth about negative $900 million. I didn’t have the chops to think to ask for his tax returns.

I also wrote a book about the modelling industry and heard stories about Trump but didn’t write them because he wasn’t important in it, just another rich guy buying a date farm, perhaps for his friends, perhaps for himself. This wasn’t pejorative, just how things were. (Leonardo DiCaprio, at the height of his “Pussy Posse” fame, thanked Trump for offering “one-stop date-shopping.”)

Now that Trump’s “pussy grabbing” comment has made its way to the forefront, Gross has been on a mission to get more on it and approached two men:

One of the two men I spoke with, a fashion photographer, requested anonymity..

The other man… well, you’ll read his words.

Both confirmed that Trump, as I’ve reported, used to host parties in suites at the Plaza Hotel when he owned it, where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men. This is hardly aberrant behaviour in the modelling business. Indeed, it is standard operating procedure.

But both men also put Donald Trump in the room with cocaine, very young women and underage girls, and rich, old men there to—pardon my language, but if the Times can say pussy on its front page, I can say this—fuck them.

The photographer says he attended Trump’s parties with one of the owners of the hair salon, Pierre Michel, that operated in both the Plaza and Trump Tower. The salon owner, Pierre Ouaknine, says his memories of those Plaza parties vanished after a recent surgery. But the photographer’s memories are crystal clear. Trump would take over “suites on the corners” of his hotel with views of Central Park and Grand Army Plaza, not to mention lots to look at inside, and wow his guests.

The attraction for the men “was young girls assuming they’d get somewhere” by joining the party, the photographer says, “Of course, it never happens.”

Young models were attracted to the fêtes with a simple, time-tested pitch. “You’ll meet rich guys who will help you,” says the photographer. “It was networking, but on a weird, bizarre scale.”

The girls were as young as 15, he says, and “over their heads, they had no idea, and they ended up in situations. There were always dramas because the men threw money and drugs at them to keep them enticed. It’s based on power and dominating girls who can’t push back and can be discarded. There’s always someone to pick them back up. Nobody wants to call home and say ‘Help me.’”

Trump would “go from room to room,” said the photographer, who added that “I was there to party myself. It was guys with younger girls, sex, a lot of sex, a lot of cocaine, top-shelf liquor” but no smoking. Trump didn’t approve of cigarettes.

Those men at these parties often knew each other. “It’s a small community,” the photographer says. “They exchanged information, facilitated each other. Trump was in and out. He’d wander off with a couple girls. I saw him. He was getting laid like crazy. Trump was at the heart of it. He loved the attention and in private, he was a total fucking beast.”

You can hardly be surprised at the kind of behaviour such wealth promoted back in the late 80s / early 90s. But running for president with all those skeletons in your walk in closet? I don’t think so Donald.

Read the rest of Gross’s story HERE.

[source:thedailybeast]