Weeks after Stormy Daniels went public with allegations of an affair with Donald Trump The New Yorker obtained a document, handwritten by former Playmate Karen McDougal, detailing her own alleged affair with the president.
McDougal did not address the affair specifically while speaking to The New Yorker for a new report by Ronan Farrow published Friday, but claims to have been paid a considerable amount of money to keep quiet about it.
In the eight-page handwritten note given to The New Yorker by McDougal’s friend John Crawford, the former Playmate claims she and Trump had a nine-month affair that began less than two years after he and Melania Knauss were married and just a few months after their son, Barron, was born. Afterwards, like Daniels, McDougal claims that she was paid to keep her story quiet.
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Playboy)
Trump was shooting an episode of “The Apprentice” at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in June of 2006 when McDougal claims they first met and Trump “immediately” took a liking to her. After that McDougal and Trump began talking frequently on the phone and eventually had their first date: dinner in a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
In her handwritten note detailing the entire affair McDougal writes that she was nervous but Trump impressed her with his intelligence and charm. They “talked for a couple hours–then, it was ‘ON!’ We got naked + had sex,” McDougal wrote. Afterwards, she claims, Trump offered her money. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks – I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you – NOT for money’ – He told me ‘you are special.'”
After their first date McDougal says that they began meeting up every time Trump visited Los Angeles, which was frequent. Then they began to meet all over the country, but she would pay for her flights and he would later reimburse her as to not leave a “paper trail.”
McDougal wrote that Trump eventually introduced her to members of his family, including his children and their spouses. She also wrote that he gave her a tour of his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey and Trump Tower in New York where he pointed out his wife’s separate bedroom and told McDougal, “she liked her space.”
Four days before the presidential election in 2016 the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, paid McDougal $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story, which it never ran. According to The New Yorker, it was common practice for A.M.I. C.E.O. and Chairman David Pecker, who calls Trump “a personal friend.”
(Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
McDougal has remained silent about the report ever since, but she has finally decided to address it at the urging of Crawford.
“She and I were sitting at the house, and I’m watching him on television,” Crawford said, referring to Trump. “I said, ‘You know, if you had a physical relationship with him, that could be worth something about now.’ And I looked at her and she had that guilty look on her face.”
Crawford told The New Yorker that A.M.I.’s first offer was ten thousand dollars, but after Trump won the Republican nomination, it increased.
According to the new report McDougal signed “a limited life-story rights agreement granting A.M.I. exclusive ownership of her account of her account of any romantic, personal, or physical relationship she has ever had with any ‘then-married man.'” In exchange for her story, A.M.I. paid her $150,000.
McDougal was reluctant to speak about her agreement with A.M.I. for fear of legal reprisal, but said that she “didn’t want someone else telling stories and getting all the details wrong.”
She also declined to go into any detail about her alleged affair with the now president, but expressed regret in signing the agreement that’s keeping her quiet.
“It took my rights away,” McDougal told The New Yorker. “At this point I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m afraid to even mention his name.”
In response to the story a White House spokesperson said that Trump denies the affair and dismissed it as fake news.
“This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”
A.M.I. said that an amendment to their agreement with McDougal, which was signed after Trump won the election, gave her the right to “respond to legitimate press inquiries,” regarding the affair. The company also told The New Yorker that they decided against running her story because they didn’t find it credible.