I just had a wild idea. What do we need men for? Let’s get rid of men! But then I thought, “Well, maybe we do need them.” So let me check. Let me get in the car with Lewis [her dog] and go to towns named after women and ask women: What do we need men for? And then at the end I would know whether we should really get rid of them.

What did you find?



The day I started on the trip, I think I was in Pennsylvania, the #MeToo bombshell dropped. The day. I could hardly move because I just kept pulling over to see the story. And of course, memories swept over every woman who was reading that. I couldn’t help but think of men in my own life. And then slowly I figured out that I have a large amount of hideous men. By the time I was in Indiana, I had written down in my notebook, “This is a memoir.”

Do you think everybody has a list of hideous men?

I’m wondering if somebody my age who worked in the ’60s and the ’70s and the ’80s could not. You could not walk down the street in New York in the ’60s without getting hit on. And going down into the subway — the pinch pinch, the grab grab. I remember I was standing down there and a man just came up and knelt down, put both arms around my thighs and said, “I adore you.” So just imagine where his face was.

[Listen to E. Jean Carroll and her confidantes discuss the allegations on “The Daily”]

In the book, you write that you and Trump recognized each other at Bergdorf’s, talked playfully about what gift he might buy for a woman and ended up in the lingerie department, challenging each other to try on a lilac bodysuit. It was there that you claim he pushed you against the wall, pulled down your tights and put his penis inside you. But why would you go into the dressing room with him in the first place?

I thought it was a joke. Don’t you think it’s funny if he said, “Go try this on?” “No,” I said, “You try it on. It’s your color. It matches your eyes.” I just see a whole scene with him putting this on over his pants. And he’s the nicest guy. He’s Donald Trump! He’s nice. He’s charming. What an idiot I was. In a way, it was my fault. You don’t combine lingerie and going in a closed room.