Ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal who claims she had a ten month affair with former President is cleared to testify at his hush-money trial

Judge Juan Merchan decreed during the jury selection for Donald Trump's Stormy Daniels hush money trial that former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims she had a long-term affair with the GOP frontrunner in 2016, can testify. 

Trump is accused paying Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 in order for her to keep silent about the pair's alleged extra marital affair.  

Five months before the 2016 presidential election, American Media Inc, the publisher of the National Enquirer, paid McDougal, 53, $150,000 in exchange for her tell all story. The interview was never published. 

The alleged affair became public knowledge in a subsequent interview that McDougal did with The Wall Street Journal in 2016. 

Trump denies McDougal's allegations. Her payment is not subject to criminal investigation but prosecutors say it will establish a pattern of behavior on Trump's part, something Trump lawyer Todd Blanche attempted to argue against. 

Judge Merchan said that the jury did not need to hear about the timing of the alleged McDougal affair, which according to the former model, occurred at the time Melania Trump was pregnant with Barron Trump. 

McDougal says she and Trump were intimate over the course of a 10-month period. 

Donald Trump and Karen McDougal pictured together in 2006, the GOP frontrunner has always denied that he had a relationship with the Playboy model

Trump has always denied having an affair with Karen McDougal while his wife Melania was pregnant with their child 

A native of Gary, Indiana, McDougal was spotted by a Playboy photographer after booking several modeling gigs in the Detroit-area in the 1990s 

In 2023, McDougal told MailOnline that her relationship with Trump was not casual. 

'I was in love with him. He was in love with me. I know that because he told me all the time. He'd say "You're my baby and I love you." He showed me off to his friends.'

'I'm portrayed as the disgruntled woman, but I am not that woman. I ended it,' she went on.

She had been thinking of ways to get out of the relationship, she says: 'A family member came to town and we went to a bar and I met a lovely man named Bruce.'

The Bruce she is referring to is Die-Hard actor Bruce Willis with whom she was pictured, hand-in-hand, in Italy on holiday a few months later in 2007, and whom she dated for six months.

'I wasn't cheating on Trump but Bruce and I were talking on the phone a lot already so that made it easier to end it. Why would I stay with a married man when Bruce was a nice guy, and single?' she continued. 

The National Enquirer's publisher suppressed McDougal's story until after the election, a dubious journalism practice known as 'catch and kill.' 

American Media Inc. has acknowledged that its payments to McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump's election bid and were made 'in concert' with his campaign.

Trump and McDougal embarked, she claims, on a consensual affair, meeting five or more times a month

Trump first met McDougal at a Playboy party at the infamous mansion in 2006, here McDougal is pictured with magazine founder Hugh Hefner

 McDougal has said Trump tried to pay her after their first sexual tryst at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2006. McDougal said she continued the relationship with Trump for about 10 months and broke it off in April 2007 because she felt guilty.

Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, another key fixture in the trial, made a recording of the pair discussing McDougal's payment. 

At one point, Trump said: 'What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?' 

DA Alvin Bragg said Trump 'explicitly' directed lawyer Michael Cohen, then working for the Trump Organization, to reimburse American Media in cash, then Cohen indicated to Trump that the payment should be made instead by a shell company.

The alleged relationship between McDougal and Trump remained concealed until a Wall Street Journal report days before Election Day in 2016. 

In 2018, McDougal settled a lawsuit with AMI in which she claimed she misled into signing an agreement that prohibited her from discussing the relationship publicly.

'My goal from the beginning was to restore my rights and not to achieve any financial gain, and this settlement does exactly that,' McDougal said at the time. 

'I am relieved to be able to tell the truth about my story when asked, and I look forward to being able to return to my private life and focus on what matters to me.' 

One of five children brought up in a working-class family, Karen was teaching four-year-olds at a pre-school when, after having her breasts surgically enhanced from 34B to 34D, she entered a swimsuit competition

 Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called McDougal's actions, and Stormy Daniels', a 'classic case of extortion.' McDougal later sued Carlson but the case was tossed out.  

One of five children brought up in a working-class family in Michigan, Karen was teaching four-year-olds at a pre-school when, after having her breasts surgically enhanced from 34B to 34D, she entered a swimsuit competition.

The competition took her all the way to Playboy magazine where she was named Playmate of the Month for December 1997, Playmate of the Year in 1998 and in 2001 the magazine's readers voted her runner-up for Playmate of the 90s, behind former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson. 

She had her implants removed in 2016 over health concerns.

In 2006, Trump, who was then the star of the reality TV show, Celebrity Apprentice, attended a pool party at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles, hosted by Hugh Hefner for the show's contestants.

He'd been married to wife Melania less than two years at the time, and she'd just given birth to their son Barron.

'He followed me around like a puppy dog, trying to get my attention,' she says. 'He took to me so much that the Bunny Mother (the woman charged with looking after the women working as Playboy bunnies) said: 'Wow, he really has a thing for you'.'

'I was saying goodbye and he was standing next to his body guard Keith Schiller and he said, "Keith, get her number."'

'He called a few days later and asked me to have dinner with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel,' she says.

'I'm ashamed about it now because 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.'

McDougal said that Trump regularly brought her to his various properties and that she met his sons, Eric and Don Jr. 

However in 2007, McDougal said that she abruptly ended the relationship over the phone. 'The phone call ended on bad terms,' she said.