Gene Folkes had just been jettisoned as a contestant on The Apprentice and was commiserating with a crew member at a bar inside the lobby of Trump Tower. He was indignant and not just at having been kicked off the reality show after its star, Donald Trump , had delivered his catchphrase: Youre fired.

One of two Black contestants chosen for that season in 2010, Folkes was insulted that Trump had called him inarticulate and accused him of illiteracy in a lengthy boardroom tirade minutes earlier.

As the crew member, a Black woman who worked as a contestant manager, consoled him, Trump suddenly appeared at the bar.

He came up and he asked me: Is this your woman? Because you two would make a really great couple. You both have the same background, Folkes told The Associated Press.

The contestant manager quietly reminded Trump that she worked for him. Then, Trump made a comment similar to something he uttered in the boardroom that never aired on TV, Folkes said.

He said again, Its not like I used the N-word, and then he walked off, and that was that, said Folkes, a New York-based consultant, podcast host and U.S. Air Force veteran.

As Trump seeks to make inroads with African American voters in his third run for the White House, fresh allegations are surfacing about his disrespectful behavior toward Black people inside the Manhattan skyscraper that launched his show and political career. There are still questions about whether any of that behavior was caught on tape.

Bill Pruitt, a former producer on The Apprentice, published a recent account alleging that Trump actually used the racist slur to refer to Kwame Jackson, a Black contestant who was a finalist on the shows first season. A spokesperson for Trumps campaign has vehemently dismissed the account about the Republican ex-president as false and politically motivated. President Joe Biden s Democratic campaign, meanwhile, spotlighted Pruitts account on social media.

Trump, who hosted The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015, has long denied such claims and called former contestants criticizing him failing wannabes motivated by greed. But he has been trailed in his professional and political life by charges of racism, from a 1973 discrimination lawsuit against his real estate business, to his push to carry out executions of five Black and Latino youths who were later exonerated of rape allegations, to his yearslong fanning of the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama , the nations first Black president, was not born in the United States.

Trumps first campaign in 2016 was rocked by allegations about his conduct on The Apprentice and other appearances during his association with NBC, notably in footage in which he said he could sexually assault women and get away with it because he was a star. MGM Studios, which bought the production company that made the show, has since been acquired by Amazon .

Almost a decade after he left his reality TV role to run for president, Trumps television career remains central to his biography and political rise. It presented Trump Tower to tens of millions of people as a symbol of power and success before Trump launched his first campaign from the buildings lobby. Last week, the same lobby was the setting for his first appearance after being convicted of 34 felony counts in a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.

The Apprentice is probably underrated as a source of that kind of image construction, said Joel Penney, a professor at Montclair State University who studies the intersection of pop culture and politics. Theres nobody who could possibly compete on the level of name recognition, brand recognition, that kind of familiarity.

THE ROLES OF NBC AND AMAZON

The Apprentice and its spinoffs were on air for more than a decade, featuring people from all walks of life and later celebrities who competed in contrived business challenges to win Trumps favor and potentially a job with his organization.

Hundreds of cast and crew members signed non-disclosure agreements, limiting their ability to reveal what happened inside Trump Tower or any outtakes featuring the ex-president. The shows producer as well as the network that broadcast it also have refused to release unaired footage. Over the last week, after the AP reached out to more than two dozen former crew members and contestants about Trumps behind-the-scenes behavior, some said they wondered how contractual agreements may have insulated Trump from blowback about politically volatile comments.

Folkes said he believes his exchanges with Trump inside the bar were recorded since he was still wearing a mic.