Donald Trump was accused last night of trying to stop black and Hispanic contestants in his TV shows and beauty pageants winning.
He was also said to have asked an African-American winner to share the prize with a white runner-up.
The Republican presidential nominee is fighting to boost dwindling voter and party support after being caught on film boasting of groping women.
Now former staff and contestants on The Apprentice and his Miss USA and Miss Universe competitions have told the Hollywood Reporter that he routinely talked down to female staff.
Insiders claimed he was biased against black women in the beauty pageants he owned and controlled.
One said the billionaire didn’t want Hispanic contestants in the top ten of Miss USA, adding: "He was very concerned one year. He did not want one woman to win because she was Puerto Rican. He said, 'She can’t win. She’s beautiful, I just don’t want her to win'."
Sources on The Apprentice, the reality TV series that propelled Mr Trump to global fame, claimed he favoured white contestants.
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Black contestant Marshawn Evans said producers intervened in the episode in which she was ‘fired’ to stop white rival Brian Mandelbaum offering himself for elimination.
She said he told her he was warned that Trump would make him "look bad" if he quit.
That series was won by Randal Pinkett, the first African-American to do so.
But he said he was shocked by a "racist" and "insulting" comment on air from Trump when he asked Pinkett if he would share the prize with the white runner-up – something that was never asked of any winner in the long-running show’s history, he said.
"Why did Donald ask me to share? My only answer is that he did not want to have an African-American have a clear, clean, full victory," he said.
The Hollywood Reporter story tallies with allegations from other TV insiders that unaired footage from The Apprentice showed Trump using racist language, including the N-word, while making an episode of the show.
Mark Burnett, the show’s British producer, rejected claims he was protecting Trump for political reasons, saying he was a Democrat and was legally prevented from releasing any footage.
Trump has been accused of racism before, after being said to have tried to keep black tenants out of his apartment buildings in the 1970s.