Three former Celebrity Apprentice staffers have claimed Donald Trump repeatedly called deaf actress Marlee Matlin 'retarded' while she appeared on the show in 2011.
Trump would 'talk to her like she was "special"' and make 'insensitive' comments to Matlin's face while she sat across him in the boardroom, one of the longtime staffers told the Daily Beast.
'He took her deafness as some kind of (mental) handicap,' they added, while another source claimed Trump would 'often equate that she was mentally retarded'.
One of the staffers recalled cleaning up the notes Trump wrote while sitting at the boardroom after a taping.
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| Three former Celebrity Apprentice staffers have claimed Donald Trump repeatedly called deaf actress Marlee Matlin 'retarded' while she appeared on the show in 2011. |
On one of the pieces of paper, he had written: 'Marlee, is she retarded?', they claimed.
Trump also allegedly mocked Matlin's voice while he was chatting with Donald Trump Jr and other people on the set in between tapings.
'It actually sounded a lot like what he did to the New York Times guy,' they said, referring to disabled reporter Serge F. Kovaleski, who Trump mocked last year during a campaign rally.
The staffer said Trump altered his voice 'to make it seem like she was mentally not there'.
'It sounded like he got a real kick out of it,' they added. 'It was really upsetting.'
One of the staffers, who worked on the show for five years, said Matlin would stand up for herself but that others on the set would just 'laugh it off'.
'It was just the culture of the show,' the source said. 'But now it's a little more serious because it's not a joke anymore!'
Matlin, the only deaf actress to ever win an Academy Award, scored second place on season 11 of the show, coming behind country music singer John Rich.
That same year, she participated in Comedy Central's roast of Trump - making a number of jokes regarding his penis.
Matlin told the New York Post last year that Trump had treated her with 'respect and humor' and was 'always looking after her' while she was on the show.
The actress, who has been a vocal supporter of her 'friend' Hillary Clinton, also told the paper she didn't 'follow his politics'.
When asked if she could see the Donald becoming the next Commander-in-chief, Matlin simply said: 'Anyone can run for president!'
Both Trump and Matlin declined to commend on the Daily Beast story. The staffers remained anonymous due to extensive non-disclosure agreements.
Their accusations come on the heels of former Celebrity Apprentice contestant Richard Hatch's allegations that Trump often hit on Matlin and Lisa Rinna while all three of them competed on the show.
Hatch, who won the first season of Survivor, said Trump's comments to the two women were 'obvious and grotesque' and 'blatant and frequent'.
'He went back and forth with Marlee,' Hatch told PEOPLE magazine.
'No matter how she responded, no matter how politely, he would push it a step further with comments about her looks, and how she was making him feel.'
Hatch said Trump also told Matlin 'about what he thought of her' and 'how happy he would be to do something with her'.
'It was a lot of innuendo, far beyond the norm,' he said. 'It was odd and weird, and people in the boardroom would look at one another, but he didn't care.'
'Matlin was with her interpreter, Jack, and I thought, "Gosh, I wonder if he's comfortable with this?"'
PEOPLE said a second source independently confirmed Hatch's allegations, while Trump press secretary Hope Hicks said his claims were untrue.
'Marlee Matlin is such a nice person, and Mr Trump has great respect for her, but this report is completely false,' she told the magazine.
'Just take a look at Richard Hatch's record, or lack thereof.'
Hatch was convicted for failing to pay taxes on his $1million Survivor winnings in 2006 and served a 51-month sentence in federal prison.
He served another nine months in prison in 2011 for violating his probation after he failed to refile his 2000 and 2001 taxes and pay what he owed to the IRS.
Hatch has also claimed that Trump had no problem making the alleged lewd comments in front of his daughter Ivanka.
'That was not just uncomfortable for me. It was weird,' Hatch said. 'He didn't care that she was there.'
'He didn't seem afraid that she would hold him accountable or say anything about his boorish behavior.'
'He was just that way, and it didn't matter to him one bit that his daughter was listening in.'
Hatch's allegations come the same week that six women publicly accused Trump of touching them without their consent.
Celebrity Apprentice producer Mark Burnett has also come under increasing pressure to release unaired tapes of Trump from the show, including one that allegedly shows him using the N-word.
Among those who have said there is dirt on the recordings is Bill Pruitt, an Emmy Award-winning producer, who wrote on Twitter: ‘As a producer on seasons one and two of The Apprentice I assure you: when it comes to the Trump tapes, there are far worse.’
Trump's campaign went into a tailspin last week after a 2005 Access Hollywood interview caught him making extremely lewd comments about women to host Billy Bush while on a hot mic.
'I just start kissing them,' Trump said as they discussed beautiful women. 'It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.'
'And when you're a star, they let you do it,' he added. You can do anything. Grab them by the p***y.'
Burnett released a joint statement with MGM, which owns his production company, on Tuesday insisting he did not have the ability 'nor the right' to release the footage, adding that MGM was restricted by contracts and 'legal requirements'.
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