As the United States of America gears up for its upcoming Presidential elections slated in November 2020, an old report from the year 1999 has resurfaced which might bring in embarrassment for Michael Bloomberg, the former New York Mayor and a late entrant into the 2020 Democratic race.
The report claims that Bloomberg, who is allegedly known for his sexist and misogynistic comments about women had once made a sexualized comment about his daughter too. Describing his then 16-year-old teenage daughter as “busty and blonde”, he had said he had arranged dates for her in every city in China during a visit to the country.
The report published in a Wired magazine in 1999, had quoted Bloomberg as saying: “My daughter is tall and busty and blonde. We went to China together. And what’s a 16-year-old going to do on a business trip? So I got her dates in every city in China.”
Bloomberg had allegedly made the comment while attending an alumni dinner at the Hilton hotel in New York in the year 1999 where he was the keynote speaker. Although he had followed it with saying that it is off the record, Journalist David S. Bennahum had published the comment in a profile of Bloomberg published in Wired.
The quotes were shared in a tweet by Twitter user @Andipalmur on Wednesday night shortly before Bloomberg made his debut on the Democratic primary debate stage in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Twitter user linking the Wired article captioned his Tweet as: “Normal guy Mike Bloomberg likes to get his “busty” daughter laid on business trips, off the record”.
The Democratic candidate’s past comments have seemingly come back to haunt his presidential campaign, as others on the debate stage took him to task for other alleged remarks he made about women in the past. During a debate, senator Elizabeth Warren, his fellow presidential candidate had hit out at Bloomberg for his history of misogyny.
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“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians’,” Sen. Warren said. “And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.” Warren called out Bloomberg for two scathing comments about women.
She also brought up the non-disclosure agreements Bloomberg infamously had his employees to sign which allegedly prevented women from speaking out about the inner-workings of the company.
According to reports, nearly 40 sex discrimination and sexual harassment cases have been brought against Bloomberg and his organizations by 64 women over the past several decades.
Bloomberg once described his life as a single billionaire bachelor in New York City to a reporter as being a “wet dream.” “I like theatre, dining and chasing women,” he said. On a radio show in 2003, he had said that he would “really want to have” Jennifer Lopez, which he later explained away as wanting to “have dinner” with her. Moreover, a top aide had once said Bloomberg frequently remarked “nice tits” upon seeing attractive women.
His employees in 1990 had put together an entire booklet of some of his more egregious comments, including: “If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s,” and, of the computer terminal that made him a billionaire, “It will do everything, including give you [oral sex]. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”
In a 2013 New York Magazine story on Christine Quinn, who was a New York City mayoral candidate at the time, the reporter recounts an interaction with Bloomberg at a Christmas party where Bloomberg gestured to a woman in attendance and made the comment, “look at the ass on her.”
Bloomberg served as New York City’s mayor from 2002 to 2013 and is the co-founder, CEO, and owner of Bloomberg L.P., a privately-held financial, software, data, and media company. Bloomberg made a late entry into the 2020 Democratic race in November 2019.
