Tabloid suppressed Trump affair story, say former staff
US 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.
Karen McDougal confirmed in the story, published online yesterday, that she wrote the account, but said she was constrained in what else she could say publicly about Trump because she had signed a confidentiality agreement.
The affair ended in part after McDougal started feeling guilty about it, and after Trump made an offensive comment about her mother’s age as well as a vulgar remark about the anatomy of black men, the magazine reported.
The story said McDougal was paid US$150,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign for the rights to her story about an affair with any ‘‘then-married man’’ by supermarket tabloid the 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 was not printing it, a tabloid industry practice known as ‘‘catch and kill’’.
Former staffers at American Media, the company that publishes the Enquirer, have said the company has often bought the rights to unflattering stories about certain celebrities.
The practice, described by six former employees who had participated in such deals, could give Pecker leverage over celebrities so that he could elicit future favours, such as appearing on his magazines’ covers. The former staffers spoke on condition of anonymity because they had signed non-disclosure agreements.
The company had approached McDougal about extending her contract barring her from talking about Trump in recent months, as the behind-the-scenes negotiations to keep porn star Stormy Daniels’ allegation of a Trump affair quiet had been made public, the New Yorker reported.
American Media has said it didn’t find McDougal’s account of an affair with Trump credible, and that it paid her to write fitness columns. The company denied that having exclusive rights to McDougal’s story left it with any influence over the president, saying that this claim ‘‘while flattering, is laughable’’.
The White House said Trump denied 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.
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 US$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 New Yorker said. McDougal told the magazine she regretted signing legal documents that constrained what she could say. ‘‘Every girl who speaks is paving the way for another,’’ she said.