Who is E Jean Carroll? The writer and TV host who took on Donald Trump

E Jean Carroll has been a trailblazing figure in New York’s journalism, entertainment and literary scenes for decades.

Born in Detroit and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the one-time Miss Indiana University beauty queen began pitching her ideas to magazines at the age of 12.

After graduating from college, she got her breakthrough by landing her first published article in Esquire, a “witty literary quiz she concocted” about Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald.

From there, writing assignments at Rolling Stone and Playboy began to “trickle in”, she told Indianapolis Monthly in 1996.

While living in Montana with her first husband Steve Byers and their dog, she came to New York City in 1983 to interview Fran Leibowitz for a cover article in Outside magazine.

Entranced by the bright lights of Manhattan, Ms Carroll decided to leave her husband and move there on the spot.

“Of course, I went back for my dog,” she toldIndianapolis Monthly.

Ms Carroll quickly established herself as one of the city’s top magazine journalists, writing “Gonzo-style” first-person articles for Playboy and New York.

The New York Times called her “feminism’s answer to Hunter S Thompson”.

She was hired as a writer for Saturday Night Live, earning an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program in 1987.

E Jean Carroll talks to reporters outside a courthouse in New York, in March 2020.

In the 1990s, she went on to host her own cable television talk show called Ask E. Jean. While her career was taking off, Ms Carroll became a fixture in the glitzy New York social scene. She was a regular at Elaine’s, a legendary Upper East Side restaurant frequented by a who’s who of celebrities.

Ms Carroll mingled with literary