Ex-Playboy model tells Anderson Cooper that Trump offered her money after they slept together

published 23 March 2018

In an interview Thursday with CNN's Anderson Cooper, former Playboy model Karen McDougal said she "spent a lot of time" with President Trump more than a decade ago, and she found him to be "very sweet" and "liked his charisma," but was "sad" when he offered her money after they had sex for the first time.

McDougal alleges she had an affair with Trump, knowing he was married to his third wife, Melania Trump. She "felt guilty about it," McDougal told Cooper, and is "sorry" for what happened. "I wouldn't want it done to me," she added. McDougal said she was in love with Trump and he "told me all the time he was in love with me," calling her "baby" and "beautiful Karen."

She said that after they had "been intimate" the first time, Trump "tried to pay me, and I actually didn't know how to take that." When he attempted to hand her money, "I don't even know how to describe the look on my face," McDougal said, and she cried the entire way back to her house. McDougal also said she got to know Trump's former bodyguard Keith Schiller well, as he would pick her up for meetings with Trump in Los Angeles and then take her home. She said she and Trump were intimate "many dozens of times," and she "didn't know he was intimate with other ladies. ... I thought I was the only one."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.