Melania Trump said she was "surprised" by the "boy talk" in the 2005 tape in which her husband, Donald, boasts about how his fame allows him to "do anything" to women.
"I said to my husband that the language is inappropriate, it's not acceptable and I was surprised because that is not the man that I know," she said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, echoing a statement she released after the 2005 video surfaced.
The former model also said she felt that "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush encouraged the Republican nominee "to say dirty and bad stuff." Trump said the video surprised her because she had never heard her husband use that kind of language.
On Monday NBC said that Bush would depart its "TODAY" show, effective immediately.
"Obviously I'm embarrassed and ashamed. It's no excuse, but this happened 11 years ago — I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry," Bush said in a statement after the 2005 tape emerged.
At the second presidential debate, which followed the reporting of his comments about groping women, Donald Trump repeatedly dismissed his remarks as "locker room talk" and denied that he had ever behaved toward women in the way he described.
When a number of women came forward in subsequent days to various media outlets to accuse him of inappropriately touching them, Trump said the accusations were false.
In her CNN interview, which were her first public comments on the issue, Melania Trump said that she believed her husband on the issue and questioned why the historical accusations had appeared so close to the presidential election.
"This was all organized from the opposition. And with the details ... did they ever check the background of these women? They don't have any facts," she told Anderson Cooper.
She also said she had never heard her husband speak in that manner about women in private, and defended his move to criticize his accusers' looks, which appeared to imply that the women weren't sufficiently attractive to warrant a sexual assault.
"He's raw. He will say it as he feels it. So you know, I know he respects women," she said. "But he's defending himself because they're lies."
Although Trump's wife said she agreed with first lady Michelle Obama that kissing or touching a woman without consent constituted sexual assault, she said she did not believe what the GOP nominee said on the "Access Hollywood" tape could be described as sexual assault, because she did not believe her husband had acted on his comments.
"No, that's not sexual assault," she said. "He didn't say he did it."
Disclosure: Access Hollywood is owned and distributed by NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.