--- title: Megyn Kelly: Donald Trump Was Worried Over Rape Question description: Donald Trump may have gone into this first GOP primary debate flustered that moderator Megyn Kelly was going to ask him about his first wife canonical: https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/ author: Melissa Chan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-16T14:43:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T10:25:51.695Z article:section: Politics og:title: Megyn Kelly: Trump Was 'Worried' Over Ex-Wife's Rape Claim Before Debate og:description: “He was afraid I was going to bring that up" og:url: https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760f6263b382ccf1/6988aea62dce0146399eb70c/megyn-kelly-donald-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: FOX Special - "Megyn Kelly Presents" og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Megyn Kelly: Trump Was 'Worried' Over Ex-Wife's Rape Claim Before Debate twitter:description: “He was afraid I was going to bring that up" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760f6263b382ccf1/6988aea62dce0146399eb70c/megyn-kelly-donald-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Megyn Kelly Says Donald Trump Was 'Worried' Over Ex-Wife's Rape Accusation Before Debate > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Nov 16, 2016 2:43 PM UTC  Megyn Kelly (R) and Donald Trump (L) during the FOX special that aired May 17, 2016. Megyn Kelly (R) and Donald Trump (L) during the FOX special that aired May 17, 2016.FOX—2016 FOX  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Nov 16, 2016 2:43 PM UTC Donald Trump may have gone into this first Republican primary debate flustered over fears that moderator [Megyn Kelly](http://time.com/4567649/megyn-kelly-memoir-trump-feud/) was going to ask him about his first wife’s claim that he had raped her, Kelly said in a new interview. The Fox News anchor, who has been promoting her new book _Settle for More_, told [_USA Today_](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/15/megyn-kelly-memoir-donald-trump-roger-ailes-president-fox-news/93813154/) that she believes the then-presidential candidate entered the stage agitated because he had learned days earlier that Kelly might confront him about Ivana Trump’s accusation. The rape claim was part of a deposition in the 1993 book _Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,_ though Ivana Trump later [retracted it in 2015](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-wife-ivana-disavows-rape-allegation/story?id=32732204). “What I think he was worried about was his divorce from Ivana Trump,” Kelly said. “He was afraid I was going to bring that up.” Kelly ended up challenging Trump on some of the rhetoric he has used toward women—a now-famous exchange which fired up the real estate mogul and prompted him to unleash a Twitter tirade against her in the following days. Kelly writes in her memoir that Trump called Fox News executives last year “in an attempt to rein me in” before the debate. “He said he had ‘heard’ that my first question was a very pointed question directed at him,” she says. Trump and Kelly later met in Trump Tower and appeared together in a television special. “I don’t really blame you, because you’re doing your thing,” he said of Kelly’s debate questions. “But from my standpoint, I don’t have to like it.” \[[_USA Today_](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/15/megyn-kelly-memoir-donald-trump-roger-ailes-president-fox-news/93813154/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/"},"headline":"Megyn Kelly Says Donald Trump Was 'Worried' Over Ex-Wife's Rape Accusation Before Debate","datePublished":"2016-11-16T14:43:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T10:25:51.695Z","description":"“He was afraid I was going to bring that up\"","url":"https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760f6263b382ccf1/6988aea62dce0146399eb70c/megyn-kelly-donald-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Chan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt760f6263b382ccf1/6988aea62dce0146399eb70c/megyn-kelly-donald-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FOX Special - \"Megyn Kelly Presents\"","caption":"Megyn Kelly (R) and Donald Trump (L) during the FOX special that aired May 17, 2016.","creditText":"FOX—2016 FOX","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4572925/megyn-kelly-donald-trump-ivana-rape-claim/","name":"Megyn Kelly Says Donald Trump Was 'Worried' Over Ex-Wife's Rape Accusation Before Debate"}}]}] ```