What exactly was on the 2005 'Access Hollywood' tape and how have courts and juries treated it as evidence in other cases?
Executive summary
The 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape is a hot-mic recording of Donald Trump and Billy Bush in which Trump boasts about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women who were not his wife and uses the now-notorious phrase about being able to “grab [women] by the pussy,” along with lines about starting to kiss like “a magnet” and not waiting [1] [2] [3]. Courts and juries have treated the tape variably: it was shown to jurors and cited by a judge as relevant in E. Jean Carroll’s civil case that found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, while judges in criminal matters have sometimes permitted questioning about the tape but excluded playing the video itself as unduly prejudicial [4] [1] [5].
1. What exactly is on the tape — the content, tone and notable phrases
The recording, made in September 2005 on an Access Hollywood production bus, captures Trump speaking lewdly about women: he says he’s “automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” and boasts about grabbing women’s genitals because of his fame, framing the remarks as impunity-enabled behavior that includes kissing, groping and attempts to have sex with women who were not his wife [2] [1] [3]. News coverage and segments describing the tape uniformly characterize it as vulgar, hot-mic “locker room” talk as Trump later called it, and Access Hollywood hosts have publicly confirmed the recording’s authenticity [6] [1].
2. How the tape emerged into public view and who released it
Although filmed and held by NBCUniversal’s Access Hollywood, the video did not break on NBC; The Washington Post published the tape during the 2016 presidential campaign after internal debate at NBC about airing it, prompting questions about why NBC-owned footage surfaced through another outlet [4] [7]. The timing — weeks before the election — intensified its political impact and fed subsequent legal and media arguments about motive and damage control [7] [8].
3. The tape’s use in civil litigation: E. Jean Carroll’s case
Judges allowed jurors in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and sexual-abuse case to view the tape; a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded $5 million, and Judge Lewis Kaplan later denied a new-trial request in part by citing the tape’s probative value as insight into Trump’s state of mind and similarity to Carroll’s allegations [4] [1]. Federal court rulings explicitly recognized that the tape could be relevant to what a jury might infer about intent or propensity in the context of Carroll’s claim, despite general rules that propensity evidence is limited [4] [9].
4. The tape and criminal prosecutions: relevance vs. prejudice
Prosecutors in unrelated criminal matters argued the tape was relevant evidence — for example, asserting the video was a “catalyst” for later hush payments and thus probative of intent in the Stormy Daniels-related allegations — yet trial judges have been cautious about playing the recording for jurors because of its inflammatory character [8] [5]. In one high-profile hush-money criminal trial, Judge Juan Merchan ruled the tape could not be played for jurors, finding that while it was relevant to motive, its prejudicial effect outweighed the value of having the actual video shown; prosecutors were still allowed to question witnesses about it and might reopen the issue if the defense “opened the door” [5].
5. Legal balancing, disputes and broader implications
The tape’s courtroom life highlights a persistent legal tension: prosecutors and civil plaintiffs see it as highly probative of intent, state of mind and pattern; defense teams and judges warn that its inflammatory language risks unfair prejudice and invites juror bias, invoking evidentiary rules against admitting propensity evidence [9] [5] [8]. Reporting shows courts are not monolithic: some judges have allowed jurors to view the tape when tied closely to a plaintiff’s claim (Carroll), while others have excluded its playback in criminal trials while permitting testimony about it, leaving open how future judges will weigh relevance against prejudice in similar contexts [4] [1] [5].