Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe who Donald Trump criticized for putting on weight after her 1996 win, said Tuesday she’s supporting Hillary Clinton for president and that the 2016 election is “like a bad dream.”
“I never saw him anymore, and I don’t want to see him anymore,” Ms. Machado said on a conference call organized by the Clinton campaign. “For me, these elections are like a bad dream.”
“I never thought and I never imagined 20 years later I [would] be in this position, I [would] be in this moment. … watching this guy again doing stupid things and stupid comments,” said Ms. Machado, who is from Venezuela.
“It’s a really bad dream for me,” she said. “But now I’m supporting Mrs. Clinton. I believe in her experience.”
Ms. Machado had told Inside Edition in May that Mr. Trump, then newly in charge of the pageant, had called her “Miss Piggy” — a line Mrs. Clinton criticized Mr. Trump for at Monday evening’s presidential debate. Ms. Machado said in May it made her feel “so fat” that it made her “very depressed.”
“After the Miss Universe year, I was trying to [forget] all that year about abuse and about that moment with him, because … Miss Universe was the most amazing experience for me,” she said Tuesday.
“I’ll support Hillary Clinton. She will be our president,” she said.
During a Tuesday morning appearance on Fox News, Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Machado as “the absolute worst.”
“She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem,” Mr. Trump said. “We had a real problem. Not only that — her attitude — and we had a real problem with her.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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