Audrey Evans says her life changed for the better when she met Donald Trump on NBC’s “The Apprentice” in 2005.
Evans, a former Utah resident who now manages a coffee trade in Peru, attributed much of her career success to both the reality show and the current Republican presidential nominee.
"He was like a god, dude," she said to the Deseret News. "He’s the general."
Evans' comments are a departure from those of other women who had previously worked with the Republican presidential candidate.
A number of women who appeared on “The Apprentice” have spoken out recently about how Trump made lewd and sexist statements during the show’s productions. These come alongside allegations — made recenly in the New York Times, People magazine and other outlets — that Trump has sexually assaulted women. Another woman spoke out last Friday to the Washington Post, saying Trump groped her in the 1990s.
Temple Taggert, a former Miss Utah, also spoke publicly about her negative relationship with Trump. She told CNN that Trump kissed her on the lips, an action she considered to be a commonplace greeting from people on the East Coast. During another meeting between the two, Trump kissed her after he called her to his office for a meeting.
"I went out there and when his receptionist called him back when he came out to greet me, he gave me another embrace and a kiss and it was a little different this time, it kind of felt like, it just felt like a little bit more to me," Taggart said, adding, "To me it was like, 'I hope he knows I'm here for business.'"
The Trump campaign has not responded to our requests for comment.
But Evans, who was “fired” on the show in 2005, offered a different perspective. Back in April, she and three other former “Apprentice” participants defended Trump, according to the Daily Mail. After a group of “Apprentice” alumni spoke publicly about Trump’s dark side, Evans and her friends praised the GOP nominee and denounced the fellow “Apprentice” stars for using their time in the spotlight to hurt Trump.
“I'm offended that my colleagues are turning the tables and being the 'bully' to speak for us,” she said, according to the Daily Mail. “They used ‘The Apprentice’ to get on TV and gave their press conference without thinking how it would affect us as a group. None of them showed diplomacy. … None of them made an appointment or a phone call to discuss their disappointment with Trump. … Our fans and supporters cannot be placed in the same pigeon hole.”
Evans told the Deseret News earlier this month that she didn't have many interactions with Trump outside of filming the show. She described him as the “kindest person.” She and a group of show contestants once had dinner with Melania Trump at the 21 Club in New York City.
Evans said she never saw or heard about anything related to sexual assault while she was on the show. “These are business professionals,” she said. “We were all really well-behaved.”
Still, Evans told the Deseret News that it doesn’t surprise her that Trump has “skeletons in his closet.” Regarding the comments from a recently leaked video of Trump and NBC host Billy Bush making lewd comments about women that implied sexual assault, she said, “they are what they are.”
“Nobody took it as serious,” she said. “Nobody took the words as actions and said, ‘Oh, that’s what he does.’ I find it so far out of the box that they try to compare what he would say around guys when everybody’s laughing to actual acts … that it never had any conclusions to.”
She also wonders why NBC held off on publishing the tape, when they had it in their archives and Bush bragged about the comments on his own. The network didn't publish the tapes so soon because it was having discussions with lawyers about the ramifications of the videos going live, according to CNN.
Evans believes neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton should be judged on their private lives.
“I don’t think (Trump) in a presidential position would attempt to do things out of his diplomacy of a man," she told us in a phone interview. "He has composure. He has the rationale to know when to behave himself and what to say, not to say. He’s not explosive. He’s very sane.”
Evans said she “got an opportunity to work for Donald Trump” in real estate in Palos Verdes. She then went on to work for an outside broker.
Since then, she’s become involved in the coffee trade, specifically in Peru, where she trades local and national coffee beans with stores and organizations. She also said she’s working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide American schools with quinoa.
She’s so busy, in fact, that she wakes up at 3 a.m. to get going — a strategy she learned while on “The Apprentice.”
“All of this comes from a lot of leadership (that) you learn on ‘The Apprentice,’ a lot of the tasks you’re asked to do,” she said to the Deseret News. She added, “It really changes your life. It’s something so fundamentally life changing if you make it. If it’s not what you want it to be, you can be miserable with it, right?"
Evans said her success is all because of Trump.
“What a world this would be if we all had Trump’s brain,” she said. “It’s literally unexplainable.”
Herb Scribner is a writer for Deseret Digital Media.