Karen McDougal, an ex-Playboy model, disclosed intimate details about her “love” affair with former President Trump on Friday, while unveiling her surprise choice for president in 2024.
“I’m hoping DeSantis gets in. I’d be willing to work for his campaign,” the 52-year-old told the Daily Mail.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to make his own highly anticipated presidential run next week.
McDougal, one of the women at the focus of Trump’s “hush money” claims in Manhattan, is a lifetime Republican who supported Trump in 2016.
“He can be crass and vulgar, but when he has his kind moments, it’s lovely to see because it shows there’s still a human in there,” she explained.
“He needs to have more compassion for people in general — a lot more.”
Beginning in 2006, McDougal detailed a romantic 10-month connection with the married then-reality TV star.
“I was in love with him. He was in love with me. I know that because he told me all the time,” the actress told the Mail. “He’d say, ‘You’re my baby and I love you.’ He showed me off to his friends.”
Unlike accused hush-money recipient Stormy Daniels, who has termed sex with Trump, now 76, “the worst 90-seconds of my life,” McDougal bears no ill will toward the man who would become the 45th president — and has pointed out that he has never disputed their affair.
“His people have denied it, but he’s never denied it,” she said. “A reporter asked him: ‘Did you have an affair with Karen McDougal?’ and all he said was: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
“He knows I’m telling the truth.”
McDougal first met Trump at a Playboy Mansion pool party in June 2006, which Hugh Hefner threw for contestants of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Trump, who had recently welcomed youngest son Barron with new wife Melania, quickly became smitten with the swimsuit-clad model, she said.
“He followed me around like a puppy dog, trying to get my attention. He took to me so much that the Bunny Mother said: ‘Wow, he really has a thing for you.’”
McDougal recalled that Trump issued a directive to his bodyguard, Keith Schiller: “Keith, get her number.”
The real estate mogul-turned-TV-star called her a few days later and asked her to have dinner at his Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, where she told the Mail they had sex for the first time after having room service deliver steak and mashed potatoes.
“After dinner, things heated up and Trump made his move. I was attracted to him, but it wasn’t like I was looking to jump into bed with Donald Trump, on the first night especially,” McDougal said.
She revealed that Trump “offered her money” afterward.
“I was dressed and ready to go, and I saw this stack of cash in his hand. I said, ‘I’m not that kind of girl,” McDougal said. “He knew he’d made a mistake when he saw how upset I was. He told me I was really special.”
However, she “cried all the way home” in the car with Schiller and thought that she’d never see the eventual president again.
“But we got past it,” she shared. “I got another call asking me to dinner, and I don’t know why, but I said yes.”
A 10-month affair — in which they saw each other roughly five or more times a month — followed, McDougal said, adding that she now feels “ashamed.”
“I knew he was married but at the time it was out of sight, out of mind. I was a different girl then, having fun and not thinking about things too deeply,” she confessed.
