"I'm here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he lied and said it didn't happen," E Jean Carroll said in Manhattan federal court.
"He lied and shattered my reputation, and I'm here to try and get my life back."
Carroll, 79, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, is seeking unspecified damages from Trump, 76, who leads the Republican field in the 2024 presidential campaign.
She is suing over an alleged encounter in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996, where she says Trump raped her until she was able to flee.
Carroll is suing Trump for defamation after he denied her rape claim in an October post on his Truth Social media platform, saying he had not known her, that she was not his "type" and that she made up the claim to sell her memoir.
She is also suing under New York's Adult Survivors Act, which lets adults sue their alleged abusers long after statutes of limitations have run out.
Carroll testified that she had met Trump years before the alleged rape, finding him "very personable" and a "man about town".
At Bergdorf, Carroll recalled that she was leaving the store when Trump recognised her and held up his hand, prompting her to stop.
"He said, 'Hey, you are that advice lady,'" Carroll recalled.
"I said, 'Hey, you are that real estate tycoon.'"
Carroll said she and Trump engaged in banter, describing his tone as "joshing," with Trump seeking to buy lingerie for another woman.
She said Trump asked her to try on a piece of lingerie, prompting her to joke that he should try it on.
Carroll said Trump then ushered her to an open dressing room, shut the door, shoved her against a wall and pulled down her tights.
Carroll choked up and fought back tears as she described pushing him back.
Asked by her lawyer if she told Trump "no," Carroll said: "I don't recall saying it. I may have said it."
Carroll said she blamed herself at the time and feared she would lose her job and Trump would retaliate if she reported him.
She also said the damage was long-lasting.
"It left me unable to ever have a romantic life again," she added.
Lawyers for Trump are expected to question Carroll, including over her inability to remember when the encounter took place.
She recalled it was on a Thursday night but "I can't say I'm 100 per cent sure."
A six-man, three-woman jury is expected to decide whether to hold Trump liable for damages, and, if so, how much he owes.
The trial began on Tuesday, and is expected to last one to two weeks.
Trump stood by his criticism of Carroll in two posts on Wednesday on Truth Social, prompting US District Judge Lewis Kaplan to warn he could face more legal problems if he kept discussing the case.
"Does anybody believe that I would take a then almost 60 year old woman that I didn't know, from the front door of a very crowded department store, (with me being very well known, to put it mildly!), into a tiny dressing room," Trump wrote.
"She didn't scream? There are no witnesses? Nobody saw this?"
Trump also called Carroll's accusations "a made up SCAM" and said: "This is a fraudulent & false story - Witch Hunt!"
That led Kaplan to tell Trump's legal team, outside the jury's presence, that Trump appeared to be "endeavouring, certainly, to speak to his quote-unquote public" and to the jury about matters that have "no business being spoken about".
