ELLE Magazine declined to renew writer E. Jean Carroll’s contract last December. This is an alleged result of the personal defamation from President Trump triggered by her allegations against his predatory actions in the 1990’s.
Carroll was a veteran columnist at ELLE Magazine, she wrote advice columns for nearly 30 years at the company. She claims her editorial position was terminated because of Trump’s public slander to her character. Carroll tweeted, “Because Trump ridiculed my reputation, laughed at my looks, & dragged me through the mud, after 26 years, ELLE fired me.” In Tuesday’s filings, Carroll’s lawyers said that Trump’s comments were the cause of the magazine’s decision to not renew the contract.
In her 2019 book What Do We Need Men For?, Carroll accused President Trump of raping her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid 1990’s. In her description of the attack, she stated, he “unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.” A passage excerpted in a New York magazine went viral, leading the president to claim that he had never met Carroll (despite them being picture together). In response, Trump made various claims including that he had not met her, it was a publicity stunt, and that she was not his “type.”
This past November, Carroll then filed suit against Trump for defamation. The lawsuit argues “that Trump’s claims caused her emotional pain, reputational damage, and “substantial professional harm.” Now her lawyers also add the email from ELLE referencing Carroll’s termination as evidence of the personal consequences Carroll suffers from the president’s slander. Elle also faces potential backlash, but Carroll maintains in a tweet, “I don’t blame Elle. It was the great honor of my life writing ‘Ask E. Jean.’ I blame @realdonaldtrump.”
Sources: NBC News 2/19/20; CNN 2/19/20; Vox 2/19/20
