Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ronan Farrow Breaks Story About Trump’s Affair With Playboy Playmate

In astoundingly un-shocking news, Ronan Farrow reports that Donald Trump had a nine month long affair with a Playboy playmate from 2006 to 2007.

The story is an account from former Playboy playmate, Karen McDougal, who says that she was engaged in a sexual relationship with Donald Trump after meeting him at a pool party at the Playboy mansion in 2006. Her story was bought by American Media Inc., the owner of tabloids like the National Enquirer, for $150,000, and never published.

The CEO of American Media Inc., David Pecker, has described himself as “a personal friend” of Donald Trump and several former employees said that buying and burying a story is a common practice for the company, often used to elicit favors in return from vulnerable celebrities.

McDougal offered scant details regarding the affair due to fear of legal reprisal from American Media Inc., for whom she had signed a legal contract promising not to talk about it. She admits to having sold the story willingly but calls the process by which it was purchased “exploitative.”

“It took my rights away,” McDougal said in her interview with Farrow. “At this point, I feel I can’t talk about anything without getting into trouble because I don’t know what I’m allowed to talk about. I’m afraid to even mention his name.”

Despite a lack of details, Farrow reports that Trump covered his tracks by having McDougal purchase hotels and flights in her name and later reimbursing her for the cost. McDougal also said that Trump offered her money after their first sexual encounter, an offer that she declined.

This story comes after Trump’s lawyer admitted to paying a woman named Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, $130,000 from his own pocket to keep her quiet about her own affair with Donald Trump.

At this point, I’m willing to bet that Trump supporters believe these stories – they just couldn’t care less as long as he continues to cut taxes and attempt to strip rights from immigrants and trans people.

Still, for the sake of etiquette, Trump denies everything.

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.