Law & Order episode inspired by Trump sexual assault accusations to never be shown
A much-delayed episode of the crime series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that was said to be inspired by sexual assault accusations levelled at President Donald Trump will reportedly never see the light of day, according to the chairman of US network NBC.
The episode, titled Unstoppable, was written and filmed in September 2016, and saw actor Gary Cole portray a "wealthy and boorish man" who decides to run for US Presidency, only for multiple women to subsequently accuse him of rape.
The series, which regularly rips from the headlines to create fictional stories, was reportedly inspired by the accounts of at least 13 women who last year accused the now-President of inappropriate sexual conduct.
At the time, Trump and his team explicitly denied the accusations, and claimed the women's accounts were part of a conspiracy to undermine his candidacy and smear his name.
According to Variety, further aspects of the story were also said to be inspired by a lawsuit from a woman known as Jane Doe who accused Trump of raping her when she was 13 years old in the mid-1990s. Trump's lawyer, Alan Garten, insisted the claims were "a complete fabrication", and the woman ultimately dropped her lawsuit in November.
The Law & Order episode was first scheduled to air at the end of October 2016, in the midst of Trump's election campaign, until NBC got cold feet – partly because of NBC's own involvement in a scandal in which Trump, once the star of NBC's The Apprentice, was caught boasting in leaked audio footage from 2005 about grabbing women "by the p----"
At the time, NBC stated that the episode would be delayed until after the election took place, but a firm date was never announced. Now NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt has revealed during a panel at the Television Critics Association that it will likely never see the light of day... but more due to timeliness.
"It's now really anachronistic," Greenblatt said. "An episode about an election a year after an election just seems kind of pointless to air."
Ice-T, one of the stars of the series, previously recalled to Vanity Fair in March how the episode would have unfolded.
"There was this guy who was running for president—he was very Trump-ish, and girls were coming out of the woodwork saying he was raping them," he said. "But at the end of the day, it comes out that he was innocent. He didn't do it. So we've got to apologise, and he's still doing his thing, talking his s---. And it turns out that his campaign advisor, who was his best friend, was booby-trapping him because he knew he would be terrible for America!
"Also, I think [actor Gary Cole], he channeled Trump. So even though this guy he played wasn't Trump, he acted like Trump. I think NBC just said, 'You know what? This might be cheesy or corny.'"
The rapper and actor did add that he also believed the episode shouldn't air, once again because of issues of relevancy.
"To put it out now, it's old and stuff," he said. "So I think [NBC] just got rid of it. I don't know if they burned the s--- or whatever. They paid me for it. I don't give a f---, really. I got my money!"
