Donald Trump frequently used the N-word and other racial slurs, a former Apprentice Star and White House aide has claimed.
Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was one of the president’s most senior African American aides, claims he was recorded making the slurs "multiple times" during the filming of his TV talent show.
Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, made the shocking claims in a new memoir Unhinged, due to be released next week.
The former aide claims she has spoken to three sources who confirmed that Mr Trump was caught on tape using the N-word during filming for The Apprentice but she has not heard him use the word herself.
Mr Trump has a tanning bed in the White House residency and fought with staff over its installation, Manigault Newman also claims in the book.
Mr Trump hosted the show for its first 14 seasons from 2004-2015, before he announced he would run for the presidency.
Manigault Newman, often referred to by just her first name, was a participant on the show’s first season and a celebrity sequel.
She also claims Mr Trump would use racist language when raging about the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
George Conway, who is half Filipino, has been a vocal critic of a number of the president’s policies.
Manigault Newman quotes the president saying: “Would you look at this George Conway article… “F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! F***ing Goo-goo,” according to The Guardian, who have obtained an early copy of the book.
According to extracts seen by the Washington Post, Manigault Newman claims she was also offered a $15,000-a-month hush money payment to prevent her from publicly criticising Mr Trump or his family.
The former aide said after her dismissal she was offered a role doing diversity outreach work for Mr Trump’s 2020 campaign.
The offer was made in a phone call from Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and campaign adviser, offering her the role and monthly contract in exchange for her silence.
“The NDA attached to the email was as harsh and restrictive as any I’d seen in all my years of television,” Manigault Newman writes in the book.
Earlier this week US media reported that Manigault Newman had secretly recorded the president during their White House interactions and used the tapes in order to secure a book deal.
The former Apprentice contestant left the Trump administration amid reports of a blazing row with chief of staff John Kelly at a Christmas party, and critics have suggested her book is a way of seeking revenge.
Early on in the presidential campaign Manigault Newman was a vocal supporter of Mr Trump and served as Director of African-American Outreach in 2016.
Manigault Newman, who served as director of communications for the White House office of public liason, writes that at the time of her departure she had come to a “growing realisation that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist".
However she claims that Mr Kelly was aware that she was close to getting her hands on Mr Trump’s compromising Apprentice tapes which prompted him to fire her under another pretext.
It is not the first time Mr Trump has been hit by damaging tapes. Shortly before the 2016 election, the release of a tape of him boasting about grabbing women by their private parts dominated the headlines.
Shortly afterwards, Bill Pruitt, a producer on The Apprentice claimed there were “far worse” out takes of Mr Trump on the reality show. Actor Tom Arnold has also claimed to have a video of Mr Trump saying "every offensive, racist thing ever”.
“It was him sitting in that chair saying the N-word, saying the C-word, calling his son a retard, just being so mean to his own children,” he told US radio station KIRO.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the media company which holds the rights to The Apprentice, has refused to release the footage citing contractual and legal obligations.
On Friday, the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: “Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administration are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusations.
"It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the President during her time in the administration.”