Beauty queen says Donald Trump groped her at New York City pageant

Donald Trump 'jumped' on a blonde 6' 1' pageant queen, 'grabbing her body everywhere' after inviting her up to a suite at his New York hotel for 'a private talk', the woman has claimed exclusively to DailyMail.com.

And it was only because of her height and strength that Beatrice Keul could fight off the former president, who is now hoping for a second term in the White House.

'I think my size saved me,' Keul said of the 1993 incident in the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time.

Keul, 53, is coming forward now because she discovered all the documentation for her trip from her home in Zurich, Switzerland sitting in a box when she prepared to move.

Her description of the events closely mirrors accusations made by several other women over the years – including writer E. Jean Carroll who has been awarded more than $88 million in damages after Trump accused her of lying over an alleged assault in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room.

A longtime friend, Swiss writer Pascal Claivaz, also told DailyMail.com that Keul first told him her story of Trump's unwanted sexual advances 20 years ago, and that her telling of the incident has not changed in the intervening years.

The Trump campaign did not respond until after the article was posted by DailyMail.com.

Then National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Keul's accusations 'are false', claiming they were planted to distract from accusations against Kamala Harris's husband Doug Emhoff.

‘Fake allegations like this are a disservice to women who are truly victims of assault, like the women in Doug Emhoff's past,’ Levitt said. 

Keul, who was a high-end staffer in a Swiss bank and a part-time model, grabbed Trump's attention when she won second place in the Miss Switzerland 1992 pageant in Zurich and reached the final round of the Miss Europe competition in Istanbul that year.

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She said she then received an invitation from the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant, offering an all-expense-paid trip to New York and Atlantic City to participate in that contest.

'When you are from Switzerland, the US is a big wow,' Keul told DailyMail.com speaking almost perfect English with a slight German accent. 

'Then you think about New York, that's a second wow. And then comes the name Trump. Wow again.'

'Trump, as a brand, was quite something at that time. You could be blinded by all that. I didn't know it's a jungle there.'

Keul, now a divorcée with a teenage son, flew from Zurich to Atlantic City, New Jersey, via John F. Kennedy Airport on November 14, 1993.

After a couple of days of pageant events at Trump's Castle Casino, she said the 50-or-so contestants were bused to the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

And she said it was clear that Trump, then 47, had an eye for her as he went round talking to the contestants.

'He said, 'Ah we finally meet, Miss Keul. How nice to meet you finally.' He was definitely excited,' she said, adding that Trump mispronounced her name as 'Cool'.

'He stayed a long time. We talked for so long that everybody was staring at us. A good 10 minutes if not 15. I couldn't believe he was so fond of me,' she said.

'I gave someone my Kodak, I told them to 'click-click'.'

Keul, who now lives in the Swiss capital Bern, told DailyMail.com that after a press luncheon a Trump staffer approached her to say the celebrity hotelier wanted a private meeting.

'He took me to the upper floors. It was one of the big suites,' she said.

'I thought Trump wanted to talk, as the other guy told me. I was confident, but I went with closed eyes.

'When I entered, he jumped on me. I just had time to turn. I was not prepared. I tried to do what I could to get rid of him.'

She said Trump groped her as she told him to stop and tried to shove him off.

'He kissed me on the lips and on the neck. He tried to lift my dress. He was grabbing and touching my body everywhere he could.' 

'I'm very tall, that's what helped me a lot. I'm 185cm [6'1'] with a good 5-7cm shoes [2-3']. I think my size saved me,' she said.

'I tried everything I could. Finally, I said 'let's talk first' or something like that, then he slowed down.

'Then he held my hand, he kissed me, he asked me if I wanted to drink something, he asked me to sit down.

'It was a bit Jekyll and Hyde,' she said. 'I didn't know how to react.

'I had to breathe. I was thinking, how do I get out of here? Let's be nice, I thought.'

Keul said they talked for about half an hour, with Trump asking if she wanted to stay in the US and offering to help her get a placement on a New York University course.

'He asked me to agree to see him again. I said yes, because I didn't want trouble. He asked me if I'm mad, I said no. I had to find something diplomatic,' she said.

'I remember he was holding me, kissing me, he said 'I'll see you later'.

'When you are with sick people you have to stay calm, because if you are not calm something very bad can happen. I tried to be as normal as possible and lie in my replies.

'It was the beginning of the pageant and I had an entire week to stay there. I knew if I left, I had to tell people why. So I couldn't do that.

'I was in a foreign country. I was scared that I could not go home, or I couldn't come back. I was scared of everything, and when you're scared, you say whatever it takes to save yourself.'

Keul told DailyMail.com that because pageants were merely a hobby for her, and she had her own income, she felt more able to rebuff Trump's unwanted advances.  

'It's sad for those who don't know to say no, or don't have the courage or opportunity to say no,' she said.

'Not everyone had the privilege that I come from. Not everybody was lucky enough. If I didn't have the background I have, I guess it could have ended very badly.'

Keul's revelations come less than a week after former Sports Illustrated model Stacey Williams claimed her then-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein took her to meet Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan in 1993.

Williams, now 56, said that as soon as she was introduced to Trump, he pulled her towards him, put his hands 'all over my breasts', waist and buttocks.

Trump's team denied Williams's claims, saying it was an attempt by Kamala Harris's campaign to distract from stories about Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Keul told her story to DailyMail.com before Williams came forward, and she said she had never heard of Williams until her story was published on Wednesday of last week.

Keul also claimed that pedophile financier Epstein was close to Trump, attended pageant events and repeatedly tried to convince her to join a party at Mar-a-Lago.

'Epstein was insisting to pay for everything, the flight, the accommodation, so that I would come and join them at the party. Nothing else interested him,' she said.

'He was very explicit. He said, 'You know I can take care of you. We organize many parties with Don. I take care of everything.' He was really insisting.

'He said he's organizing the party at Mar-a-Lago with Don. It was clear he was some kind of henchman.

'I thought, if he wants me that badly to come, he wants me to do something for that.'  

Trump has admitted he knew Epstein – who died in prison while awaiting trial in 2019 – and called him 'a terrific guy' in 2002 but once in the White House he said: 'I haven't spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.'

Keul's friend, Swiss magazine staffer Pascal Claivaz, said she told him the same story around 2004, a few months after they met through her role in public relations for a Swiss bank.

'I've known her for 20 years. We were good colleagues,' he said. 'She comes from a good family, with an impressive background.

'One day, during a conversation about the USA, she showed me pictures of her with Mr. Donald J. Trump and told me about her invitation at the Miss American Dream Pageant.

'In tears, she explained to me that Trump jumped on her,' Claivaz said. 'It was very emotional for her, very difficult.

'She is not a liar. I know her enough to believe her,' Claivaz added.

Keul said she returned to Switzerland and tried to put the ordeal out of her mind – despite Trump allegedly calling her mother asking when she would return to the US.

She threw all the documents about the New York visit – including her plane tickets and Trump's original invitation – into a box, and there they stayed for three decades.

'When I came back, I was very upset. I just opened a box and threw everything in there,' she said. 'I was too mad, too disappointed. I was destroyed when I came back. I just wanted to forget.

'A short time ago, I moved and I went through my boxes, I opened this box and everything was in there.

Keul's account of her encounter with Trump bears many similarities to those of other women who have accused him of sexual impropriety, including Carroll who says Trump attacked her in a changing room after they had met by chance while both were shopping in New York.

At least 27 women have accused him of rape, unwanted kissing, groping or other misconduct.

Among the most notorious accusations are those from Jill Harth, who helped run the American Dream pageant. She claimed in a 1997 lawsuit that Trump sexually assaulted her with his finger under a table as her husband took a photo of them at a nightclub in 1992.

She also claimed he forced himself on her in his daughter Ivanka's bedroom at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida mansion.

Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos claimed he assaulted her after she had accepted his invitation to talk business at The Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.

And Trump campaign worker Alva Johnson said he had forcibly kissed her at a rally in Florida in 2016.