Billy Bush is once again addressing that infamous tape of a private conversation between himself and President Donald Trump. Back in 2005, a hot mic caught Trump making his notorious “grab” comment to the then Access Hollywood host. It wasn’t until a decade later the the audio surfaced, resulting in Bush being essentially blacklisted in the entertainment industry.
Sitting down with actor Dennis Quaid on The Dennissance podcast, Bush spoke about the recording, saying “I don’t even remember that ending part. The famous line. Never recall it. When I heard it, I heard it for the first time, cause I don’t think it ever landed on me.” He also expressed surprise that audio was caught in the first place, stating, “Trump was actually very savvy in the way that he always knew if [his mic] was on or off.” Quaid brought up Trump’s dismissal of the language as “locker room banter,” to which Bush replied, “That’s him! When you’re with Trump, there’s two topics: golf or…” Bush then stopped talking, seeming to insinuate that the other topic is women.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“On one level, I kind of could say it was locker room banter, and on another it was very wrong,” Quaid went on to say. Bush went on to speak even more candidly, saying, “It’s such an ugly moment. Yeah you wanna delete it. Of course you wanna delete it. But you can’t, and then it’s out there for the world to consume, and your children most importantly. It’s just humiliating, embarrassing, its s—ty.” He added, “There’s no denying the moment is a terrible moment.”
Quaid brought up the fallout that Bush faced over being associated with the controversy, saying that he knew what it was like to be in “Hollywood jail.” Quaid elaborated, saying, “When I got off cocaine I went in. That was back before everybody was going to rehab.” He revealed that for about 6 years “it was tough to get a job after that.” Bush eventually shared that he has since mostly bounced back from the fallout, thanks to public support, as well as private support from famous friends like Quaid, Cindy Crawford, Julie Bowen and Kate Walsh.
Coincidentally, Quaid made waves in early April when he praised Trump for the way the president has been handling the coronavirus pandemic. During an interview with The Daily Beast to promote The Dennissance, Quiad was asked about the situation, and share his honest feelings. “Well, to tell you the truth, I think the president is handling it in a good way. We see him on television every day, he’s involved, and the travel ban early on was a great idea — which he did in spite of protest about that.”
Quaid added, “But I don’t want to get into the protest. I’m an independent — I’ve voted both ways throughout my life, swinging like a pendulum toward what the country needed at the time — and I think this might be an opportunity for the country to come together again. World War II did that for that generation, and this might be our defining moment of a generation. It’s going to be a different world, for sure, when all this is over, and hopefully we can all be a bit more unified.” New episodes of The Dennissance — an Audio Up property — debut Wednesdays, and can be found on most streaming services.
