“I'm in a lot of locker rooms, I am an athlete, and no, that is not the type of conversation that goes on or that I've participated in,” former NBC host Billy Bush says. | Getty Billy Bush on notorious Trump tape: It wasn't 'locker room talk'

The infamous “Access Hollywood” tape on which President Donald Trump can be heard describing in vulgar detail how his celebrity allowed him to sexually assault women with impunity was not “locker room talk,” as then-candidate Trump suggested, according to the other man on the tape, former NBC host Billy Bush.

Bush, who was fired from his job on NBC’s “Today” show shortly after the tape’s publication last October, described in an interview published over the weekend by The Hollywood Reporter how the 2005 tape derailed his career and led to months of reflection that included a week-long stay at a self-help retreat in California. He noted that the “irony is glaring” that the tape proved so damaging to his career while Trump, who actually made the inflammatory comments while Bush chuckled, went on to win the presidency in spite of it.


Trump offered a rare apology for his remarks on the tape and chalked them up to “locker room talk,” a characterization that Bush disputed.

“I'm in a lot of locker rooms, I am an athlete, and no, that is not the type of conversation that goes on or that I've participated in,” he said.

Instead, Bush told The Hollywood Reporter, Trump’s comments were typical of the Manhattan billionaire. Bush was unable to recall another instance of the now-president speaking quite so inappropriately about women, “but he's a provocateur. Shocking statements flow like wine from him.”

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“I felt that, in that moment, he was being typically Donald, which is performing and shocking. Almost like Andrew Dice Clay, the stand-up comedian: Does he really do the things that he's saying or is that his act?” Bush said. “And in Donald's case, I equated it that way. When he said what he said, I'd like to think if I had thought for a minute that there was a grown man detailing his sexual assault strategy to me, I'd have called the FBI.”

Bush, who said is he planning a professional comeback, said he felt compelled as the host of “Access Hollywood” to appease Trump, then the star of the massively popular reality TV show “The Apprentice.” He said he has only listened to the recording three times and was “shocked and alarmed and totally and completely gutted” after the first time he heard it.

The episode has given him a renewed and deepened interest in defending the interests of women, Bush said, and he detailed in the interview how he explained the situation to his three daughters. He said he has not spoken to Trump since before the start of the 2016 presidential campaign.

"Looking back upon what was said on that bus, I wish I had changed the topic," he said. [Trump] liked TV and competition. I could've said, 'Can you believe the ratings on whatever?' But I didn't have the strength of character to do it."

