Former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal says she has repented for her sins with Donald Trump and has “been forgiven by Jesus,” for what she says was a 10-month affair with the then-married Trump.
In an interview on the Law&Crime Network program Brian Ross Investigates, McDougal says, “I knew it was wrong, it was a sin in God’s eyes, and yeah, I repented.”
Asked whether she thinks Trump will also ask for God’s forgiveness, McDougal says, “I can’t say what he has and hasn’t done with his wife and his family, but I doubt it.”
During the Presidential campaign, McDougal was paid $150,000 by the publisher of the National Enquirer not to talk about what she says was a 10-month affair with the then-married Trump in 2006-2007. The White House has denied any such affair ever took place.
McDougal later successfully challenged the “catch and kill” contract and now says she wishes she had forgone the $150,000 and told her story to ABC News four years ago, as she had originally agreed to do.
She agreed to answer questions for the Law&Crime Network, after new witnesses came forward with information about “religious items” she says Trump gave her as gifts, and served to corroborate her version of the relationship.
“I just wish I had come clean in the beginning, let it out and kind of relaxed after that because it was a kind of nightmare for a while. In every sense of the word and from A to Z, it was a flat out nightmare,” she told the Law&Crime Network.
The former playmate acknowledged her proposed interview with ABC News became “leverage” in her lawyer’s dealings with the National Enquirer publisher, American Media Inc, and then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
She abruptly canceled the ABC News interview once she had signed the secret deal with AMI.
AMI let McDougal out of her non-disclosure deal without having to repay the $150,000, says her lawyer Carol Heller, who called it a “great victory” for McDougal and America’s election process.
“This is going to be a free and clear election without the National Enquirer pushing one candidate and decimating all the others,” Heller said.
Looking back on the relationship with Trump, over almost a year between 2006 and 2007, McDougal says she once loved Trump. “Yes, I thought that I was,” she said. “I’m not in love with him today.”
Asked who she was voting for in this year’s election, McDougal said, “I think I’ll support the candidate that I feel best unifies us as a country.”
McDougal and Heller have worked to restore McDougal’s reputation and successfully sued AMI to release McDougal from her promise of silence. But last week a judge dismissed their recent defamation lawsuit against Fox News, ruling that it was clear Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s remarks about McDougal were “rhetorical hyperbole” and “opinion commentary.”
But the two women saw the ruling as a victory.
“We have exposed both AMI & Fox as the fake news propaganda machines they are. Period. That’s our legacy. And I’m damn proud of it,” Heller told Brian Ross Investigates.
Ariel Tu contributed to this report.
[Images via Law&Crime Network]
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