Karen McDougal Says Donald Trump Told Her She Was 'Beautiful Like Ivanka' During Alleged Affair

Donald Trump saw his then-25-year-old daughter in Karen McDougal when he allegedly wooed the Playboy Playmate in 2006

Donald Trump saw his then-25-year-old daughter in Karen McDougal when he allegedly wooed the Playboy Playmate in 2006.

In an interview that aired on CNN Thursday night, McDougal told Anderson Cooper that the now-president once compared her favorably to his older daughter — and now-White House senior adviser — Ivanka.

“He said I was beautiful like her, and ‘you’re a smart girl,’ ” said McDougal, who was 35 at the time of her alleged affair with Trump, then 60. “There wasn’t a lot of comparing, but there was some, yeah. I heard a lot about her.”

McDougal added that Trump is “very proud” of his daughter, as he should be, and said she didn’t find the comparison “odd.”

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“You know, I know a lot of people think it’s odd,” she responded when asked about it by Cooper. “There’s been some comments I’ve heard in the news he’s said about her; I think those comments are wrong, but do I think it’s strange that a father would love his daughter so much that he brags about her? No, I brag about my dog that much.”

Trump has raised eyebrows in the past over sexually charged comments he’s made about his daughter. He famously once joked during a 2006 appearance on The View, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” And during a 2003 interview with Howard Stern, Trump said his daughter has “the best body.” In a later interview with Stern, Trump gave the radio host the okay to call Ivanka a “piece of ass.”

Cooper also noted in Thursday night’s interview that Trump once posed for a photo with McDougal, Ivanka and wife Melania at a Playboy Mansion party for Trump’s reality series The Apprentice in 2006.

McDougal told Cooper she felt “a lot of guilt” for carrying on an alleged 10-month sexual relationship with Melania Trump‘s husband.

“What can you say except, I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want it done to me, I’m sorry,” McDougal, 46, said.

“Going through it when I look back where I was back then, I know it’s wrong, I am really sorry for that. I know it’s the wrong thing to do,” she said, fighting back tears.

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The former Playmate — who said her affair with Trump began in June 2006, three months before he welcomed son Barron with Melania, and ended in April 2007 — said she and Trump had “real feelings” for each other.

“There was a real relationship there,” she said, adding, “I was in [love with him] … He always told he loved me.”

White House reps previously told The New Yorker that Trump denies having had an affair with McDougal: “This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal.”