Were there any investigations into Donald Trump's treatment of Miss Universe contestants?

1. Claims That Grab Attention: Who Said What and When

Complaints from former contestants and onetime pageant-adjacent models allege a range of misconduct, from unsolicited kisses to groping and walking into changing rooms while participants were unclothed; specific named accusers include Temple Taggart McDowell, Bridget Sullivan, Tasha Dixon, Cassandra Searles, and others who have described incidents spanning the 1990s and 2000s. These allegations have repeatedly been reported in major outlets and compiled into lists of Trump accusers, emphasizing consistent patterns in the accounts rather than a single isolated event ^[1]. Separately, a former Sports Illustrated model recently accused Trump of groping outside Trump Tower in the 1990s, an allegation that was publicized in 2024 and ties into a larger set of accusations against him ^[2]. Media accounts often present the allegations alongside Trump’s denials, but the public chronology centers on multiple women coming forward over many years rather than on an institutional Miss Universe investigation being announced or concluded.

2. Probes and Public Investigations: What Actually Happened on Paper

Publicly available records and reporting show investigations and legal actions related to sexual-abuse allegations against Jeffrey Epstein and broader journalistic investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia around the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, but they do not document a named criminal investigation exclusively targeting Trump’s treatment of Miss Universe contestants. Reporting about the 2013 Moscow pageant led journalists and federal investigators to examine financial and foreign contacts tied to the event, and some coverage places pageant activities in the context of larger probes, but that is distinct from a targeted inquiry into contestant mistreatment ^{[3] [4]}. Where allegations of sexual misconduct arise, they have sometimes been folded into civil suits or media investigations; however, the public record lacks a single prosecutorial investigation announced explicitly into Trump’s interactions with Miss Universe contestants.

3. Evidence, Denials, and the Challenge of Proving Conduct Years Later

Most allegations from former contestants and models are testimonial and contemporaneous corroboration is limited; some accusers have provided details like postcards or contemporaneous accounts, while Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and characterized accusations as politically motivated or false. The evidentiary record in reporting is therefore a mix of firsthand accounts, some corroborative materials, and denials, which complicates a clear legal pathway from accusation to prosecution in many cases ^{[2] [1]}. Journalistic inquiries have compiled and compared accounts, but criminal investigations typically require different standards of evidence, and the passage of time, jurisdictional complications, and witness availability have constrained public movement from allegation to public prosecution specifically centered on Miss Universe-related conduct.

4. Associated Context: Epstein, Moscow Pageant, and Organizational Responsibility

The 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow drew scrutiny because of its financing and Trump’s interactions with Russian figures such as Aras Agalarov; reporting on those ties fed into broader investigations into Trump’s foreign connections rather than into his personal treatment of contestants. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Epstein’s documented history of trafficking and abusing women, and his association with events that included pageant participants, has prompted some reporters to explore overlaps between Epstein’s activities and Trump’s social circles, but mainstream coverage separates Epstein’s criminal probes from allegations aimed directly at Trump ^{[3] [5]}. Organizational responsibility also figures: Miss Universe and related national organizations have faced criticism or made internal changes on eligibility and conduct rules, such as the 2012 reversal regarding transgender contestant Jenna Talackova, indicating institutional responses rather than law-enforcement investigations focused on Trump ^[6].

5. Gaps, Open Questions, and Why the Record Looks the Way It Does

The public record answers certain things and leaves others unresolved: journalists have documented multiple accusers and connected pageant events to broader investigative threads, but a clear, discrete law-enforcement inquiry labeled “investigation into Donald Trump’s treatment of Miss Universe contestants” is absent from major reporting. That gap reflects both legal hurdles—statute of limitations, evidentiary standards, jurisdiction—and editorial choices by outlets to fold allegations into broader profiles of Trump’s conduct or into separate probes (e.g., Epstein, Russia), producing a diffuse rather than centralized investigative trail ^{[3] [1] [5]}. The credible way forward for researchers is to treat each allegation and each probe on its own evidentiary merits while noting the pattern of reported behavior and the institutional contexts in which those interactions occurred.