Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado says she is done discussing Donald Trump after publicly feuding with the Republican presidential nominee over his past criticism of her weight.
“At this point in time Alicia has said her comments about the Trump situation and we are no longer discussing the subject,” an email from Machado’s representatives said Thursday, according to The Daily Mail.
{mosads}“If you are interested in talking about Alicia’s career, her businesses and her philanthropy we are open to discussing, however we will not be discussing the Trump subject any further.”
Machado’s story became an unlikely campaign issue last week, when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton invoked Trump’s 1990s insults of the pageant winner during the first presidential debate of 2016.
“He called this woman ‘Miss Piggy,’ then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping’ because she was Latina,” Clinton said on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
“Donald, she has a name,” Clinton added. “Her name is Alicia Machado, and she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet she’s going to vote this November.”
Trump and Machado were first publicly linked in 1996, when she won the Miss Universe pageant that he had just bought.
The billionaire tried to make Machado’s subsequent weight gain a public issue, at one point even inviting the media to watch the Venezuelan model work out.
Trump late last week said Machado had “duped” Clinton into defending her “terrible” past during an early-morning series of tweets.
The businessman also accused Machado of starring in a “sex tape,” urging voters to “check out” the footage as proof of her sordid background.
Fact-checkers have rated the claim that Machado appeared in a sex tape as “mostly false,” noting many women in pornographic videos tagged with her name are not the former Miss Universe.
Machado, who backs Clinton, late last week charged that Trump’s allegations are “slander and cheap lies” aimed at discrediting her.
“The Republican candidate and his campaign team are again generating attacks, insults and trying to revive defamations and false accusations about my life,” she said in an Instagram post on Sept. 30.
Trump on Thursday defended his past remarks concerning women including Machado, arguing they were made “for the purpose of entertainment.”