Judge Rules Ex-Playboy Model Karen McDougal Who Claims She Had Affair With Trump Can Testify in Hush Money Trial
Donald Trump's alleged mistress Karen McDougal will testify in his hush-money trial.
April 16 2024, Published 11:49 a.m. ET
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal has been cleared to testify in Donald Trump's hush-money trial, RadarOnline.com has learned.
McDougal alleged she had a ten-month affair with the ex-president when Melania Trump was pregnant with the couple's son Barron.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to make alleged hush money payments.
McDougal claimed the alleged affair with Trump was more than a casual fling.
"I was in love with him. He was in love with me. I know that because he told me all the time. He'd say 'You're my baby and I love you.' He showed me off to his friends," the ex-model told Daily Mail.
"I'm portrayed as the disgruntled woman, but I am not that woman. I ended it."
Dozens of jurors have been dismissed from the case so far.
Less than six months before the 2016 presidential election, the National Enquirer allegedly paid $150,000 for her story but it never published it.
McDougal claimed she had been trying to think of ways to end the alleged relationship when she met a "lovely man named Bruce."
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McDougal ended the relationship after meeting actor Bruce Willis, whom she dated for six months in 2007.
The Bruce the model referred to was actor Bruce Willis. McDougal and the Die Hard star dated for six months in 2007.
"I wasn't cheating on Trump but Bruce and I were talking on the phone a lot already so that made it easier to end it," McDougal explained. "Why would I stay with a married man when Bruce was a nice guy, and single?"
The model alleged the ex-president attempted to pay her after their first sexual encounter at a bungalow in Beverly Hills in 2006. While she claimed the relationship continued for the next 10 months, she felt guilty and ended things in April 2007.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, recorded a conversation with the ex-president in which they discussed an alleged payment to McDougal regarding her tell-all interview.
The trial began on Monday, and news quickly spread that it appeared the former president was nodding off.
In the recording, Trump can be heard asking his lawyer, "What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?"
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of "explicitly" directing Cohen, who worked for the Trump Organization at the time, to reimburse the National Enquirer's publisher, American Media Inc., in cash.
Cohen is said to have told the ex-president that the payment should be made through a shell company instead.
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Days before the 2016 election, McDougal's alleged affair became public with the publishing of her interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Two years later, McDougal settled a lawsuit with the National Enquirer's publisher after claiming she was misled into signing an agreement that prevented her from telling her story.
"My goal from the beginning was to restore my rights and not to achieve any financial gain, and this settlement does exactly that," McDougal said. "I am relieved to be able to tell the truth about my story when asked, and I look forward to being able to return to my private life and focus on what matters to me."
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