Billy Bush is continuing his apology tour.
Nancy O’Dell said Bush reached out to her just a few weeks ago to say he was sorry for the infamous leaked tape of his conversation with Donald Trump, in which Bush could be heard laughing along to Trump’s recounting of a time he tried to hit on a married woman.
“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it,” the now-president said in the 2005 recording, which was leaked in October. “I did try and f–k her. She was married.”
That woman turned out to be O’Dell, Bush’s “Access Hollywood” colleague at the time.
“Billy reached out to me just about three weeks ago by email. He wrote a really nice apology, which I appreciated very much,” O’Dell shared on Monday’s “ET,” the show she’s worked on since 2011. “He and I worked together for so many years, for a long time, and I only wish him the best moving forward.”
Bush, who lost his new gig at NBC’s “Today” show after the scandal, broke his silence on the “Access Hollywood” tape in an in-depth interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday.
“Looking back on what was said on that bus, I wish I had changed the topic,” Bush said. “I wish I had said: ‘Does anyone want water?’ or ‘It looks like it’s gonna rain.’ He liked TV and competition. I could’ve said, ‘Can you believe the ratings on whatever?’ I didn’t have the strength of character to do it.”
He also told “Good Morning America” his teenage daughter was upset with him when the bombshell news broke.
“My now-16-year-old daughter called me and she was in tears and she was really upset, and I said, ‘Mary, it’s going to be OK. Don’t worry,’” Bush told Robin Roberts. “And she said, ‘No, why were you laughing at the things that he was saying on that bus? Why were you playing along with that? It wasn’t funny.’ And I said, ‘Mary, I’m sorry and there is no good answer for that.’”