New Yorker writer Ronan Farrow’s long-awaited new exposé of a man in power finally dropped on Friday.
This time the focus is on President Donald Trump and a former Playboy Playmate’s claim that she had a nine-month extramarital affair with the then-mogul and reality TV star. reveals lengthy details of another extramarital affair between Donald Trump and a woman he met at the playboy mansion back in 2006.
It’s a long read — and we know you’re busy — so here are the seven key highlights.
1. Former Playmate Karen McDougal hand-wrote an eight-page account of an extramarital affair with Trump in 2006 — about two months into his marriage to third wife, Melania Trump
“The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump,” Farrow wrote.
2. American Media Inc. bought McDougal’s story in August 2016 for $150,000 — but never published it
“On August 5, 2016, McDougal signed a limited life-story rights agreement granting A.M.I. exclusive ownership of her account of any romantic, personal, or physical relationship she has ever had with any ‘then-married man,’” Farrow wrote, adding that a retainer spells out that the man in question was Trump.
3. McDougal said Trump tried to pay her after the first time they slept together
“As McDougal was getting dressed to leave, Trump did something that surprised her. “He offered me money,” she wrote in her eight-page letter obtained by the New Yorker. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks – I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you – NOT for money’ – He told me ‘you are special.’ ” (A White House spokesperson denied that Trump had an affair with McDougal.)
4. McDougal’s friends said she ended the affair shortly after Trump insulted her mother and joked that one of her friends liked “big black d—“
“The decision was reinforced by a series of comments Trump made that McDougal found disrespectful, according to several of her friends … When she raised her concern about her mother’s disapproval to Trump, he replied, “What, that old hag?” Farrow wrote.
He also detailed another encounter McDougal and a female friend said they had with Trump in a limousine. When the friend mentioned a relationship with an African-American man, Farrow wrote, “Trump remarked that the friend liked the big black d—‘ and began commenting on her attractiveness and breast size.”
5. McDougal said Trump showed her his home in Trump Tower — including Melania’s separate bedroom
He “said she liked her space,” McDougal wrote, “‘to read or be alone.’”
6. Trump went to great lengths to conceal the affair, McDougal said
McDougal said that Trump would fly her to events across the country but made her pay for her flight and hotel rooms — and then reimburse her. “No paper trails for him,” she wrote, according to Farrow.
7. Trump has denied the entire story, calling it “fake news”
“This is an old story that is just more fake news,” a White House spokesperson told the New Yorker. “The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”