Karen McDougal said she had a 10-month affair with Donald Trump before he was President, and while “disgusted” by his comments that surfaced during the 2016 campaign about grabbing women’s genitals, she said it was not the Trump she knew.
“I was disgusted,” she said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” Thursday evening. “I had not seen that in him at all when our relationship was going on. I didn’t see that side of him at all.”
She continued, “That’s not the man that I knew.”
McDougal said that she did not know whether the infamous “Access Hollywood” comments reflected how Trump acted in real life. She added she was troubled when women came forward during the campaign with accusations of sexual harassment and assault against Trump.
“I was kind of mortified,” McDougal said. “I was like ‘Wow, is he capable of that?’ Because I didn’t see that, but clearly women have their stories and their opinions and if they were violated like that they should come forward.”
McDougal said she was unsure what impact her own story might have had on the presidential election had it come out sooner, and that as a Republican, she voted for Trump.
“I voted for Donald,” she said.
McDougal spoke at length with CNN on Thursday about details of her alleged affair with Trump, which the White House has denied. She also spoke about her guilt over having a relationship with a married man and her recently filed suit against the publisher of The National Enquirer.
A New Yorker article published last month said McDougal’s decision to end the alleged relationship came in part over guilt, but was “reinforced” by disrespectful comments from Trump, who the article says referred to her mother as “that old hag.”