The revelation of an alleged affair with Donald Trump from 2006 to 2007, and its subsequent coverup, put her into national headlines before and after the 2016 United States presidential election.

[1] After graduating from high school in 1989,[7] she attended Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, majoring in elementary education.

[6] One of her professional goals has always been to open a learning center for children,[1] but she put those aspirations on hold to focus on pursuing roles in acting and modeling.

[8] In 1997, McDougal won a local swimsuit competition, promoted by Venus Swimwear in Michigan, earning her place at the international final in Florida.

[4] Her pictorial, by photographers Richard Fegley and Stephen Wayda, has a winter theme[1] and its outdoor portion was shot in snowy fields near Park City, Utah.

[3] According to her interview in her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold," released soon after her PMOY issue debuted, she views as physical imperfections her "funny" smile, her crooked pinkies, inherited from her grandfather, and her "ugly feet," which she wishes others would not look at.

[5] During her appearance on The Magic Hour to promote her PMOY issue, McDougal demonstrated her signature pose, straddle split on TV in front of a live studio audience.

[18] McDougal collaborated with fantasy sculptor Bill Toma in creating a limited edition bronze statuette titled Warrior Princess in 2003.

[19] In early 2004, McDougal appeared in a photo spread in the Italian edition of Vogue with fellow Playmates, Pamela Anderson, Audra Lynn and Tishara Cousino.

[21] McDougal also participated in the 50th Anniversary celebrations of Playboy throughout the year at Las Vegas, New York and Moscow with other Playmates past and present.

[24] McDougal has also appeared in various pin-up posters, calendars, magazine covers, advertising campaigns, promotional events, clothing, swimwear and lingerie catalogs following her success as Playmate of the Year.

[8] McDougal appeared in a series of sexy television commercials for XFL football league on NBC and UPN with the theme of "Cheerleaders".

In her feature film debut, McDougal's character, Jessemina, is a slave girl who is forced into fighting as a female gladiator in an Ancient Roman colony by its corrupt governor.

[30] After winning a local try out in Los Angeles, McDougal advanced to the 2004 WWE Diva Search special held at the Beacon Theatre in New York as one of 28 finalists.

on E!, VIP Access on Showtime), appeared in other TV programs (such as: Lovespring International, Anger Management, The O'Reilly Factor, the Playmate edition of Russian Roulette,[33] etc.

), movies (cameos in Joe Dirt, Charlie's Angels, Grind, The Girl Next Door and Raising Helen) and music videos with singer David Lee Roth.

[7] But eventually, they embraced the fact, and her mother appeared in interview segments of her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold" as a sign of support.

[40] In March 2008, she appeared in a topless pictorial and interview in Spanish magazine Interviu, in which she discussed her then relationship with actor Bruce Willis.

[13] In November 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that McDougal had told a friend that she had an affair with a married Donald Trump from 2006 to 2007, with various sources quoting that it had lasted from ten months to a year.

AMI stated to The Wall Street Journal that it had paid the amount to McDougal not "to kill damaging stories about" Trump, but for "exclusive life rights to any relationship she has had with a then-married man" and "two years' worth of her fitness columns and magazine covers".

[49] The Wall Street Journal published the story four days before the 2016 United States presidential election, in which Trump was the Republican Party nominee.

Farrow quotes the memoirs as stating that McDougal first met Trump in June 2006 at a party hosted by Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

[56][57] In March 2018, McDougal filed a lawsuit against AMI in Los Angeles Superior Court, aiming to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement.

This appeared to contradict a previous claim by Hicks days before the election, when she responded to The Wall Street Journal report about the payment by saying, "we have no knowledge of any of this".

[68] Pecker, Howard and Allen Weisselberg (chief financial officer of The Trump Organization) were reportedly granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding the payments.

[71] In September 2019, it was reported the House Judiciary Committee was preparing to investigate Trump's alleged involvement in the 2016 hush-money payments to McDougal and Stormy Daniels.

[75] In April 2024, Pecker testified during Trump's New York criminal trial how he, Howard and Cohen conspired to get The National Enquirer to acquire McDougal's story.

[77][78] Text messages which were shown to the trial's jury also showed how Davidson had conversations with Dylan Howard concerning the hush money negotiations.

"[83] On May 14, 2024, Cohen testified that McDougal's hush money was undertaken "in order to ensure that the possibility of Mr. Trump succeeding in the election — that this would not be a hindrance" and that he did not alter the recording of the conversation.

According to the suit, network anchor Tucker Carlson defamed McDougal by saying that she had personally extorted Trump for the hush money she received in 2016.