(Updated 5:45 P.M. with a statement from President Trump.)

Columnist E. Jean Carroll, who has written for Elle, Playboy, and other publications, and who once hosted an advice-giving television show, has released an excerpt from her newest book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, in which she accuses President Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

Carroll recounts running into Trump in front of Bergdorf-Goodman in Manhattan.

I am surprised at how good-looking he is. We’ve met once before, and perhaps it is the dusky light but he looks prettier than ever. This has to be in the fall of 1995 or the spring of 1996 because he’s garbed in a faultless topcoat and I’m wearing my black wool Donna Karan coatdress and high heels but not a coat.

Trump tells Carroll he’s there to buy a present “for a girl,” and the two went through the store with both Carroll and Trump suggesting possible presents and ended up in the lingerie section. Trump, according to Carroll, picked up a “lacy see-through bodysuit of lilac gray” and suggested she try it on. The two walked to the dressing rooms together and entered one that was unlocked.

The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.

I am astonished by what I’m about to write: I keep laughing. The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle. I am wearing a pair of sturdy black patent-leather four-inch Barneys high heels, which puts my height around six-one, and I try to stomp his foot. I try to push him off with my one free hand — for some reason, I keep holding my purse with the other — and I finally get a knee up high enough to push him out and off and I turn, open the door, and run out of the dressing room.

The whole episode lasts no more than three minutes. I do not believe he ejaculates. I don’t remember if any person or attendant is now in the lingerie department. I don’t remember if I run for the elevator or if I take the slow ride down on the escalator. As soon as I land on the main floor, I run through the store and out the door — I don’t recall which door — and find myself outside on Fifth Avenue.

Carroll says she didn’t report it to the police but did tell two close friends at the time. She says she also contacted Bergdorf’s to see if the security tapes still exist, but they do not.

In response to a request for comment by New York Magazine, the White House said, “This is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.”

UPDATE 5:45 PM, Friday, June 21

President Trump has issued a statement regarding the story.

President Trump issues a statement on the sexual assault allegations against him in New York Magazine pic.twitter.com/KWmhhWKcmM

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 21, 2019