What was claimed
Donald Trump said he would go “backstage before a Miss Teen USA show” and see “girls” with no clothes on.
Our verdict
While Mr Trump said in a 2005 interview that he would go backstage at some beauty pageants and see women with no clothes on, he did not mention Miss Teen USA or talk about seeing teenage girls getting dressed.
Social media posts that wrongly suggest US President Donald Trump spoke about going backstage at teen beauty pageants to see girls aged 14-16 getting dressed are being shared again.
But these posts have edited a genuine quote from Mr Trump to make it appear as though he’s referring to Miss Teen USA pageants, and teenage girls, which he did not do in his original comments.
The posts feature an image of a younger Mr Trump alongside a photo of what appear to be beauty pageant contestants representing various US states.
The text on the image attributed to Mr Trump says: “I’ll tell you the funniest thing. I’ll go backstage before a Miss Teen USA show and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything and no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it.
Join 72,953 people who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.
“You know, I’m inspecting. The girls (14-16) are standing there with no clothes on. And you see these incredible looking women (teens), and so, I sort of get away with things like that”.
As we’ve explained before, this quote is based on something Mr Trump actually said on an episode of the Howard Stern Show in April 2005. However, in his original comments he did not reference “Miss Teen USA”, or say the ages of the contestants were “14-16”, and did not refer to the women as “teens”.
We’ve previously written about other misleading or fabricated quotes attributed to Mr Trump and other politicians. It’s important to consider whether information you see online comes from credible sources before sharing it—our fact checking toolkit offers some tips for navigating content on social media to avoid sharing misinformation.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because this quote is not completely accurate.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.