Ex-playmate tells of ninemonth affair with Trump

NEW YORK — U.S. President Donald Trump had a nine-month extramarital affair with the 1998 Playboy Playmate of the year beginning in 2006, showing the woman his wife’s bedroom in Trump Tower and bringing her to his private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according to the woman’s eight-page, handwritten account of the relationship obtained by The New Yorker magazine.

The woman, Karen McDougal, confirmed in the story published online Friday that she wrote the account, but said she was constrained in what else she could say publicly about Trump because she’d signed a confidentiality agreement.

The story said McDougal was paid $150,000 US during the 2016 presidential campaign for the rights to her story of an affair with any “then-married man” by the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which never ran it.

Just before election day, The Wall Street Journal reported that the tabloid, whose publisher, David Pecker, is a longtime friend of Trump’s, had paid for McDougal’s story but wasn’t printing it, a tabloid-industry practice known as “catch and kill.”

The White House said Trump denies having an affair with McDougal. The alleged affair occurred not long after Trump married his third wife, Melania, who had recently given birth to a son, the magazine reported.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stefanie Clifford, has also said she had an extramarital affair with Trump beginning in 2006. This week, Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he paid Clifford $130,000 with his own money in October 2016 as part of a deal that would keep her from publicly discussing her account.

The same Los Angeles lawyer who represented Clifford in that transaction also represented McDougal in her negotiations with American Media, the magazine said.