20 October,2016 09:01 AM IST | | Agencies
Ex-People writer’s friend says she was there when Natasha bumped into Melania on Fifth Avenue, a claim the wife of the Republican nominee has denied
Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attend a rally at the Grand Junction Regional Airport in Grand Junction Colorado. Pic/Getty Images
New York: Six colleagues and close friends of former People writer Natasha Stoynoff have come forward to corroborate her account of being attacked by Donald Trump in 2005. Among them is a friend who was with Stoynoff when she ran into Melania Trump later in NYC.
The wife of the Republican nominee has denied meeting Stoynoff after the attack, but Stoynoff's friend Liza Herz remembers being there during the chance meeting.
"They chatted in a friendly way," Herz, who met Stoynoff in college, said. "And what struck me most was that Melania was carrying a child and wearing heels."
Stoynoff's story, which made news when it broke last week and is reprinted in this week's issue of PEOPLE, has described a run-in with Trump when she was covering him and pregnant wife Melania on assignment for PEOPLE in December 2005.
âHe pushed me'
"We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat," she writes.
Trump vigorously denied the story and later attacked Stoynoff on the campaign trail, saying, "She lies! Look at her, I don't think so."
Stoynoff describes meeting Melania later: "I actually bumped into Melania on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump Tower, as she walked into the building, carrying baby Barron. âNatasha, why don't we see you anymore?' she asked, giving me a hug."
In a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper on Monday, Melania denied the encounter ever took place.
"The story that came out in PEOPLE magazine, the writer said my husband took her to the room and started kissing her; she wrote in the same story that she saw me on Fifth Avenue, and I said to her âNatasha, how come we don't see you anymore?' I was never friends with her, I would not recognise her," she told CNN.
People editor-in-chief Jess Cagle said in a statement, "In this week's issue (which hits newsstands in New York on Wednesday), we feature a story that includes named sources who can corroborate Natasha Stoynoff's account - including one woman who was actually with her when she bumped into Melania..."
