Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state assemblywoman, has accused Joe Biden of unwanted touching in an article titled "An Awkward Kiss Changed How I Saw Joe Biden." The piece was published by New York Magazine's The Cut.
The incident allegedly occurred at a campaign event in 2014, when the politician was running for lieutenant governor. Flores, a Democrat, says that Biden was there "to speak to my leadership and my potential to be second-in-command — an important role he knew firsthand." Flores alleges that Biden came up from behind her, smelled her hair, and then kissed the back of her head.
Flores writes:
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, 'I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?' He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, 'tragame tierra,' it means, 'earth, swallow me whole.' I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.
"Vice President Biden was pleased to support Lucy Flores’s candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada in 2014 and to speak on her behalf at a well-attended public event," Bill Russo, a spokesman for Biden, said, per The Hill. Russo continued: "Neither then, nor in the years since, did he or the staff with him at the time have an inkling that Ms. Flores had been at any time uncomfortable, nor do they recall what she describes [...] But Vice President Biden believes that Ms. Flores has every right to share her own recollection and reflections, and that it is a change for better in our society that she has the opportunity to do so. He respects Ms. Flores as a strong and independent voice in our politics and wishes her only the best."
