Four years after the Access Hollywood tape was released in which Donald Trump boasts about grabbing women by their genitalia, the man he was speaking to in that clip—Billy Bush—told Men's Health he’s still reeling from the fallout of that conversation, but can’t say he’d behave too differently if he could do it all over again.
Bush told the publication that before that recording was leaked, “Nothing bad ever happened to me,” describing himself at the time as a “little suck-up cog,” “little suck-up Billy Bush,” and “the fluffer.” He said that Trump loved to be interviewed by him because “I think I was a good foil,” and if he could relive that infamous moment aboard the bus with him, the Extra host confessed he probably wouldn’t have done much differently aside from not laugh or redirect the conversation. “I’m not going to give [you] a pandering answer. I’m sorry. I can’t,” he told his interviewer.
“I saw it, and I did not like what I saw,” Bush says of his experience of watching the tape again 11 years after it was recorded. Although, he adds that he felt confused at the time that this passing moment could completely dismantle his career, asking, “How could you take this little slice of shit and paint me with it?” However, he says, “I’m afraid if you rolled back many moments that I thought were private, you could do a highlight reel that would last 10 hours. I mean, I’ve many times not been my best self.”
The backlash from the tape led to him being fired by NBC in 2016, losing his job as an anchor on the Today show. Bush says he was prepared to give an apology on air before he was let go, and thought he had his coanchor Matt Lauer’s support to stay on. “That he didn’t fight for me is so deeply hurtful because I’ve known him for absolutely ever,” he confessed. On the bright side, the host says the experience has made him “not just some untouched little sheltered, happy-go-lucky, ’Jeez, everything good happens to this guy’ [person]. It makes you real.”
He says it also taught him “that life isn’t fair. Everybody has some kind of fucked-up shit. And if you don’t know that, and if you don’t know how to handle that, process that, get through that, then you haven’t fully gotten to where you need to be. I’m afraid that event was important for my development as a broadcaster, as a journalist, as a man, as a person. I needed to have my ass handed to me.”
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