Rowanne Brewer Lane has been all over the cable news networks refuting an article published Sunday by the New York Times in which she was featured prominently.
A former model, Brewer Lane, then 26, dated Donald Trump in 1990 after meeting him at a Mar-a-Lago pool party.
The Times piece, which apparently generated an unprecedented amount of traffic on its website, alleged a pattern of inappropriate behavior by the GOP presumptive presidential nominee in his younger days that included unwelcome advances to women and unsettling workplace conduct. With input from 50 women in his orbit, it was called “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved with Women in Public.”
Since Trump moved in fast-paced entertainment circles in New York City and Palm Beach, some edgy behavior presumably would hardly be shocking, especialy by contemporary standards.
That being said, many media pundits who aren’t predisposed to be in Trump’s corner claimed that the story fell flat. Moreover, during an interview with the two Times journalists who were somewhat equivocating in their defense of their work, a CNN anchor suggested that they may have taken Rowanne Brewer Lane’s comments out of context (see clip below and draw your own conclusions).
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“A microscopic search of Trump’s private life over decades revealed that he likes beautiful women. Not much to set against his strong record of promoting women in an industry that’s still male-dominated. Far, far worse has been said for more than two decades about Bill Clinton. But the Times has never seemed much interested in his private life or character. Especially not when he was running for president,” the New York Post observed .
In numerous media appearances since the article appeared, former Trump girlfriend Brewer Lane blasted the Times for allegedly misleading the reader about what she actually said to the reporters interviewing her.
Among other things, Trump himself as you would expect called the story a politically motivated “hit piece” on his Twitter feed. One of Trump’s lawyers floated the idea last night of suing the New York Time s for libel, although it is very difficult for a celebrity (i.e., a public figure) to win a case of that nature under U.S. law.
Another Trump exec called upon the newspaper to retract the story altogether.
With the coming forward today of the woman central to the failing @nytimes hit piece on me, we have exposed the article as a fraud!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2016
On CNN, Rowanne Brewer Lane made her feelings clear about the way she was portrayed in the Trump women story.
“I am very upset with the New York Times article because it was completely misleading. They mislead me; they took parts of I said in at least a two-hour interview that they did exclusively with me and spun it and put a negative connotation on what I was saying. I made it very clear may times that I had a very pleasant relationship with Donald… I was never offended by anything that he had said. He was never anything more than a gentlemen, a very, very good guy…I have never seen him women anything other than respectfully…”
Similarly, she told Inside Edition that “I’m extremely upset. Basically, they lied to me. They promised me multiple times that it would not be a hit piece and clearly it was.” Her reaction when she saw the article for the first time: “My heart stopped…I was deceived.”
Who is Rowanne Brewer Lane? Trump’s ex-flame is at the center of a New York Times article. https://t.co/3FQVV6YokQ pic.twitter.com/Ijhqoaoz5e
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) May 17, 2016
On Fox and Friends , she expressed equivalent sentiments about the New York Times brand of journalism.
“It was very upsetting. I was not happy to read it at all. The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across. They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not…they put a negative connotation [on my quotes]; they spun it where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump.”
Meet Rowanne Brewer Lane via @foxandfriends . The center of yesterday’s New York Times hit piece on @realDonaldTrump . https://t.co/NtXxauJcBB
— Dan Scavino Jr.??? (@DanScavino) May 16, 2016
Danger & Play blogger Mike Cernovich, among others, has called upon the New York Times to release the tape recording of the Rowanne Brewer Lane interview so that the public can determine for itself if her comments were fairly or unfairly rendered in the article.
Whether you like or hate the presidential hopeful, the Times is still standing behind the story, so there may or may not be more fallout to come about Donald Trump’s behavior with women.
[Photo by Ted S. Warren/AP]
