UPDATE: Marlee Matlin has responded to the accusations made by former Celebrity Apprentice staffers.
ORIGINAL STORY: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is in hot water after more accusations about his behaviour on the The Celebrity Apprentice set have surfaced.
Over the last several days, many alleged victims have spoken up about abusive things Trump has said and done. (On top of that, multiple women are now accusing him of sexual assault.) The latest Celebrity Apprentice accusations involve biggies: Marlee Matlin is an Oscar-winning actress — the first deaf person to win the coveted award — and Khloe Kardashian is, well, a Kardashian.
Matlin appeared on the celebrity reality show in 2011, and came in second place to country singer John Rich. Throughout the season, audiences heard Trump’s glowing comments about Matlin, so it’s jarring to hear, as per three longtime staffers, that the GOP candidate regularly disrespected her and treated her like she was mentally disabled.
WATCH: Summer Zervos, former Apprentice contestant, says Trump assaulted her
According to The Daily Beast, the insults Trump directed at Matlin occurred right in front of her and when she wasn’t there. Because of a non-disclosure agreement standard with reality shows, Trump’s comments were kept buried. Until now. Trump allegedly called Matlin “retarded” on multiple occasions, treated her as lesser-than, and frequently mocked her speaking voice by doing crude imitations.
One former staffer recalls an incident when, after the producers were cleaning up the Apprentice boardroom post-firing, they glanced at the notes that Trump wrote (he often jotted things down before the firing) on the table. One of them read, “Marlee, is she retarded?”
READ MORE: Celebrity Apprentice contestant fired by Donald Trump for ‘locker room talk’
The staffers also remember Matlin standing up for herself against Trump, but that footage was not included in the broadcast show.
In November of 2015, Trump faced similar heavy criticism for mocking a New York Times reporter who has a disability during a campaign rally in South Carolina.
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The Huffington Post is reporting that, during filming of the 2009 season of Celebrity Apprentice, reality star Khloe Kardashian was also the subject of off-camera remarks by Trump. He was allegedly upset about her casting and made disparaging comments about her looks and weight.
“He basically wanted to just get rid of her,” a former editor said to HuffPost. “He called her a ‘piglet.'”
READ MORE: Donald Trump lauds release from ‘shackles’ as Republicans abandon him
Trump also rued not being able to “get the hot one” for the show, referring to Kardashian’s sister, Kim. A second source confirmed that Trump called her “the ugly Kardashian” and a “fat piglet.” The former staffers also emphasize that Kardashian wasn’t fired based on her performance — she was fired because Trump didn’t like her.
Kardashian hasn’t commented on the 2009 firing.
Earlier this week, former Celebrity Apprentice contestant Maria Kanellis-Bennett called Trump a sexist hypocrite after she was unceremoniously fired from the reality show in 2010 for using “locker room talk.”
WATCH: Maria Kanellis-Bennett is fired from Celebrity Apprentice
The former professional wrestler was fired by Trump after she chastised fellow contestant Curtis Stone for coming into their room and using the bathroom, leaving a “stench” behind. In the episode, she said to Stone: “The reason why I said you were so arrogant was because you came in our dressing room and you took a crap and left the stench in the room.”
Apparently, Trump took issue with the word “crap,” and called Kanellis-Bennett’s remarks “disgusting” and “gross.”
On Friday, the Washington Post and NBC released video of Trump speaking to then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about making sexual advances on women without their consent.
Trump was forced to issue a public apology for the remarks and has repeatedly dismissed them as “locker room talk,” including during Sunday’s debate when he was pressed on the issue.
READ MORE: Donald Trump lauds release from ‘shackles’ as Republicans abandon him
“What I said is something that happens in the locker room, what he said is not. He fired me for what I said because I am a female,” Kanellis-Bennett told the New York Daily News Tuesday.
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Adding insult to injury, after her firing, Kanellis-Bennett was ordered to apologize to Trump by Apprentice producers.
“I was told I shouldn’t talk like that as a lady, and that, to me, was inequality at its best,” she said. “I can’t speak my mind as a female, but he can speak his mind as a male. There’s a problem with that.”
She also claims that during filming of the show, Trump frequently flirted with her and made inappropriate comments about her looks.
READ MORE: Donald Trump’s statements ‘constitute sexual assault,’ White House says
“He would say I looked nice that day. He would make comments in the boardroom,” she said. “He believes that just by being a celebrity you can get in someone’s pants. That’s not acceptable in any form or fashion.”
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