It's been more than seven months since the leaked release of a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape featuring Donald Trump and Billy Bush crudely discussing women in an exchange that Trump later dismissed as "locker room talk."
Since then, one of those men has become president and the other has been unemployed.
Bush broke his silence over the now-infamous conversation in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter published Sunday, wherein he spoke about how he has spent the intervening months, passing the hours with yoga and meditation.
Subsequently fired from his gig on the "Today" show, Bush bemoaned his lack of opportunity to tell his side of the story, hurt by being the butt of late-night jokes.
"Many of them were very hurtful. To be the butt of monologue jokes _ that's all hurtful," Bush said. "Having been in the job as long as I have, I developed a fairly thick skin. My skin is definitely thicker now, and my heart is a little softer underneath it."
But it wasn't the reaction of late-night comedians that most horrified Bush. He recounted a frantic call from his then-15-year-old daughter, Mary, in which he tried to assure her that everything would be all right.
"Why were you laughing at the things that he was saying on that bus, Dad? They weren't funny," Bush's daughter pressed him.
"I have no answer for that that's any good. I am really sorry. That was Dad in a bad moment a long time ago," Bush responded.
Bush recalled that in 2005, he was often with Trump, given that "The Apprentice" was a monster hit.
"I spent a lot of time with Trump. He was my main assignment," Bush explained before explaining his ignoble behavior on the bus.
"In my job, there's a lot of downtime, and there are off-camera moments where you have a short period of time to, in a chameleon-like way, connect with people," Bush said. "If it's Martha Stewart, I would tell her about the new organic garden that I just started growing in my backyard."
Because it was Trump, Bush seemingly went along with the crass, dehumanizing discussion of women.
Since his dismissal from "Today," Bush has processed the events the best way he knew how.
"When you have a big, traumatic event, you go through stages, and it led to acceptance and understanding," mused Bush. "And then I found myself in a place of soul searching. And I developed a commitment to become a better, fuller man."
Bush hopes to return to television in some form and, in the meantime, he'll reach out to others who have also found themselves under intense public scrutiny.
"I will be picking up my pen and writing them and calling them on the phone, and I will pursue these interviews and these moments with these people," said Bush. "And through what I've learned and where I've been, I will tell them, 'You have empathetic ears in me.'"
