Did you know that Karen McDougal left Donald Trump to get with Bruce Willis? Probably not, but the sorted story is picking up steam!
Years later, the story of her alleged affair with the former president is no longer secret, despite significant payments to cover up the truth. ALLEGEDLY!
In the years that the disgraced former president occupied the White House, the world heard a lot about plots against porn stars and Playboy.
Then, between the pandemic and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and so many other things, many almost forgot about the affairs and the hush money scandal. There were simply bigger problems.
But a hush money payment violates federal law Is a crime. The crazy thing is that the relationship that brought Trump (indirectly) to court lasted less than a year almost two decades ago. It ended after she moved up to Bruce Willis.
Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case involves his story Karen McDougal
Karen McDougal is a former Playboy model. In 2016, she agreed to exclusively tell her story about an affair with then-candidate Donald Trump. The nine-month relationship she described took place in 2006 and 2007 and coincided with his marriage to Melania.
Having an affair is not a crime. It is another matter to engage in a financial conspiracy to change the outcome of a presidential election.
During Trump’s April 24 criminal trial in Manhattan, former friend and magazine publisher David Pecker testified about the plan to buy out Karen McDougal’s affair story to keep it secret.
David Pecker is a long-time friend of Trump. Until 2020 he was head of American Media, Inc (AMI). He was behind everything from regular magazines like Men’s fitness to tabloids like The National Enquirer.
He has also been at the center of the controversy over the “catch and kill” system designed to suppress stories that could potentially embarrass Trump. This included paying Karen McDougal a whopping $150,000 (and supporting her career) to give her exclusive rights to her story.
The plan was that she would sign a nondisclosure agreement and then AMI would never publish the story, all as a carefully orchestrated favor to the Trump campaign. And Trump and then-attorney Michael Cohen discussed the plan on tape, citing payments for “all this information about our friend David.” Like David Pecker.
According to Pecker, Trump “knew” the Karen McDougal story would get out
When David Pecker testified in Trump’s trial on Thursday, April 25, he shared that Trump was initially unwilling to accept the story. Pecker said in court that Trump “has made it clear that he doesn’t buy stories because they always come out.”
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business documents. These are all hush money payments in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Pecker described to the court how he acquired exclusive rights to Karen McDougal’s story in 2016 while acting as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” and burying stories before they became public. This is part of an agreement with Trump and Cohen that he made in August 2015.
According to David Pecker, the former editor-in-chief of the National Investigator confirmed Karen McDougal’s story. At that point, Pecker advised Trump to buy the rights to the story to protect his political campaign.
Despite Trump’s initial reluctance, he then gave Pecker the green light through then-attorney Cohen. This meant that Pecker negotiated a payment of $150,000 to McDougal and promised to boost her career.
McDougal wrote for AMI magazines, graced magazine covers, founded her own beauty company and even became one Radar Online Anchor on the red carpet.
David Pecker apparently realized that the plan could get him into legal trouble
From his conversations, it appeared that Pecker knew he would “receive a refund from either the Trump Organization or Donald Trump.”
According to Pecker, he spoke to his own legal counsel at the time and concluded that he did not want Trump or the Trump Organization to pay him.
“I called Michael Cohen and told him, ‘The deal didn’t happen.’ I’m not making any progress. “This is a bad idea and I want you to terminate the agreement,” Pecker testified in court. “He was very, very angry, very upset and basically yelled at me. Michael Cohen said the boss would be very angry with you.”
Of course, after reaching an agreement with AMI, Karen McDougal was finally able to tell her story publicly. The world also became very familiar with the name and story of Stormy Daniels.
As it turned out, the majority of Trump’s political base had other priorities—apparently driven by malice and hostility toward perceived enemies like racial and sexual minorities.
News of the affair angered a small portion of would-be Trump supporters, but amid the dangerous erosion of political norms, the revelations about Trump’s affairs with porn stars were nothing like the scandal it would have been in decades past.
Karen McDougal claims she was in love with Trump
Ultimately, Karen McDougal told her story The Daily Mail. “I was in love with him. He was in love with me. I know that because he told me all the time.”
She recalled: “He always said, ‘You’re my baby and I love you.’ He showed me off to his friends.”
McDougal actually voted for Trump in 2016. In 2023, she announced that she hoped Ron DeSantis would win the 2024 GOP nomination. Many Yikes Everywhere.
Karen McDougal ditched Trump for Bruce Willis
During the same interview with The daily mail, McDougal noted, “I’m portrayed as the angry woman, but I’m not that woman. I ended it.”
She felt “ashamed” about sleeping with a married man and was already looking for a way to end things with Trump. Then McDougal recalled, “A family member came into town and we went to a bar and I met a lovely man named Bruce.”
This man’s full name? Bruce Willis. The two were spotted in public in 2007. Their relationship apparently lasted about six months. In fact, this is the last relationship he had before meeting his current wife, Emma Hemming Willis.
Funny how things turn out.