A former Miss Universe is hitting back at Donald Trump, calling his accusation that she once made a sex tape “slander and cheap lies.”
Alicia Machado took to Instagram on Friday, posting a picture of herself draped in an American flag and her response in Spanish.
“The Republican candidate and his campaign team are again generating attacks, insults and trying to revive defamations and false accusations about my life,” posted Machado. “The attacks are slander and cheap lies generated with bad intentions and no basis that have been spread by tabloids.”
It’s the latest salvo in a public fight between Machado and the GOP presidential nominee. Machado has accused Trump of making disparaging remarks about her weight and ethnicity, claiming he called the former beauty queen “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton brought up Machado during Monday night’s presidential debate, repeating those accusations against Trump.
Trump fired back, posting three tweets Friday between 5:14 and 5:30 a.m., alleging the existence of a sex tape featuring Machado and mocking Clinton for using Machado as a “paragon of virtue.”
“When I was a young woman, the now-candidate humiliated me, insulted me, disrespected me publicly, as he usually did in private in the cruelest way,” Machado said in her response Friday. “Just like this happened to me, it’s clear over the years, that his actions and behaviors have been repeated with other women for decades.”
Clinton also joined the fray on Twitter, asking “what kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?”
Machado, who starred in telenovelas and became the first Miss Universe to pose in Playboy, has been a vocal critic of Trump during the campaign.
“Through his campaign of hate, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman, which is definitely one of his most terrifying characteristics,” said Machado.
Trump’s campaign has hit back at Machado, even as critics warn that the controversy could hurt the GOP nominee with women and Hispanics, two groups he has struggled to win over.
Trump and Machado were first publicly linked in 1996, when she won the Miss Universe beauty pageant that he had just bought.
Trump tried to make Machado’s subsequent weight gain a public issue, even once inviting the media to watch her work out at a gym.
In May, “Inside Edition” ran a segment reviving the issue, with Machado announcing she had become a citizen and would be voting for Clinton.