The company said it also would give her monthly columns to write and would put her on magazine covers. It barred her from telling her story elsewhere. McDougal’s story forever, but didn’t obligate the company to publish it and allowed the company to transfer those rights. Per the Journal: A contract reviewed by the Journal gave American Media exclusive rights to Ms.
McDougal thought the story would be published, but the tabloid was actually paying to make sure the story wouldn’t get out. In August, the Enquirer reportedly pulled what’s known as a “catch and kill” on the story. Friends say it lasted ten months to a year, and the mogul took McDougal and a friend to the 2006 Miss Universe pageant, seating them in the front row. Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the Year, has told friends that she had a consensual romantic relationship with Trump starting in 2006, according to the Journal. Why are we only learning of this alleged affair on a Friday night, three days before the election? Because unbeknownst to the model, the pro-Trump National Enquirer wasn’t paying to run the story, they were paying to kill it. The Wall Street Journal reports that the tabloid paid a former Playboy model $150,000 for the rights to the story of her affair with Donald Trump a decade ago, when he was married to Melania. It’s time to revive the debate over whether we have to take the National Enquirer seriously because of that one time they were right about John Edwards’s affair. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/2010 Getty Images Karen McDougal, Trump’s alleged former mistress, in February 2010.