Who is Karen McDougal? Here's how the Playboy model is involved in Trump's hush money case

Former US president, Donald Trump was arrested on Tuesday for his involvement in hush money during the 2016 election. The main case involves his brief, consensual affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, which he denies. Trump’s two lesser-followed indirect payments to keep the Playboy model Karen McDougal and a doorman quiet about his alleged sexual affair with the model were also unveiled on Tuesday. The model allegedly had a 10-month-long affair with Trump in 2006, a claim to which Trump has denied.

Here’s everything we know about McDougal and her involvement in this case.

Who is Karen McDougal? Playboy model involved in Trump’s case

Karen McDougal is an American model and actress who is known for her appearances in Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month for December 1997 and 1998. In 2001, she was voted the runner-up of ‘The Sexiest Playmate of the 1990s’ by the readers of the magazine.

She was born in Gary, Indiana, before moving to Michigan as a child. She first began modelling in swimwear competitions in her 20s, after which she was featured in Playboy magazine. She later worked as a fitness model, becoming the first woman to appear on the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine in 1999. She also appeared in TV adverts and small acting roles, such as an uncredited cameo in the 2000 film Charlie’s Angles.

According to McDougal, she met Trump at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 2006, where he was recording an episode of The Apprentice. She later wrote that Trump, who was also married at that time, “immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me, telling me how beautiful I was, etc”.

McDougal also claims that she and Trump had a 10-month relationship and they used to see each other “a minimum of five times a month”. She described her relationship with Trump as loving and consensual.

Karen McDougal's involvement in Trump’s indictment case

In 2016, during the run-up to the presidential election, McDougal signed a deal worth $150,000 to tell her story exclusively to the tabloid newspaper, the National Enquirer. This agreement banned her from talking publicly about her alleged affair with Trump.

Though the article was never published, McDougal insists she was tricked into silence about the relationship. The National Enquirer reportedly did a ‘catch and kill’ McDoghal’s story to suppress negative views on Trump. The purchasing of a story to deliberately make it vanish is known as ‘catch and kill’ and many big names use this whenever required.

In 2021, the US Federal Election Commission, which is in charge of enforcing campaign finance law, found that the National Enquirer’s publisher violated election laws by paying for the rights to McDougal’s story and never publishing it.
It was then found that the money paid to McDougal in 2016 was part of an illegal campaign contribution.

The National Enquirer was fined $187,500. McDougal later sued American Media Inc (AMI), the corporate parent of the National Enquirer, and reached an agreement that allowed her to discuss her relationship with Trump.

Prosecutors said in a charging document on Tuesday that Trump did not want the woman's story to become public "because he was concerned about the effect it could have on his candidacy."

McDougal calls herself an advocate for greater awareness of ‘breast implant illness’ saying her breast implants made her sick and she had them removed in 2017. In 2018, she publicly apologised to Trump’s wife, Melania, about the alleged affair, saying, “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want it done to me”.

The indictment that Trump is facing is solely targeted towards the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. The details concerning Ms McDougal are contained in the district attorney's statement of facts, which is given as background information to the case.

Tale of two affairs

Apart from McDougal, Trump also made a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Daniels also received $130,000 from Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen shortly before the 2016 election.

Daniels and Cohen both say the payment was to buy her silence about a 2006 affair with Trump. Trump has denied having any relationship with either of the woman.

(With inputs from agencies)

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