A Hungarian beauty queen and celebrity says that she was once courted by the man who would go on to be president-elect of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Former Miss Hungary Kata Sarka first made the claim in May 2016 during an episode of Kasza Taxi, a Hungarian interview show that resembles an Eastern European version of the popular "Carpool Karaoke" segment on the US's Late Late Show With James Corden.
In between songs, Sarka offered up that during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, held in Moscow, a man surrounded by bodyguards approached her.
"He grabbed my hand like this," she told host Kasza Tibor. "He was standing in the middle of a group of bodyguards, he grabbed my hand, he pulled me towards himself, and he asked, 'Who are you?' He asked in English. Then, I was so surprised, I’ll tell you who it was in a moment, I was so surprised that I couldn’t say anything except 'Hungary.'"
“'Hungary,'" Tibor repeated, laughing. "You’re so lame!"
"He gave me his business card with his private number, and he told me in which hotel, which room he was staying in, and that his name is Donald Trump," Sarka continued.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the claim. But Trump indeed was in Moscow for the pageant, whose managing company he owned from 1996 to 2015, a fact that he tweeted about at the time.
Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?
His visit to Russia also provided some of the most lurid details in an unverified set of documents alleging deep ties between the president-elect and Russia.
Sarka said, according to the Budapest Business Journal, she was there both as a contestant and "as the CEO of Magyarország Szépe Kft., the company then responsible for the Miss Universe Hungary pageant."
"By the way, I still have the business card," she said on Kasza Taxi, before moving on to the next song. Sarka later provided what she said was a picture of the card Trump handed her to Hungarian tabloid Blikk. "He's not my type," she said in the November interview.