Karen McDougal

Karen McDougal (born March 23, 1971) is an American model and actress. She is known for her appearances in Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month for December 1997 and Playmate of the Year in 1998, and for her alleged 10-month to year-long affair with Donald Trump before he became president. In 2001, the readers of Playboy voted McDougal the runner-up of "The sexiest Playmate of the 1990s".

McDougal taught pre-kindergarten before winning a swimwear competition that launched her career as a glamour, promotional, and swimsuit model. Since her appearances in Playboy, she extended her career into a wide variety of appearances in mainstream media, including other magazine modeling, television commercials, and minor acting, with mixed success. She has been a successful fitness model, with multiple magazine appearances, including as the first female cover figure on Men's Fitness magazine. She also starred in The Arena, a 2001 direct-to-video film, and inspired the creation of a fantasy art statuette and a doll.

McDougal is a fitness enthusiast, having studied ballet in her youth and engaged in high school sports. She is also an avid motorcycle and car collector. Since her Playmate days, she has maintained a largely private social life. 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.

Early life

McDougal was born in Merrillville, Indiana, near Gary. She self identifies as Cherokee, and is of Scottish, and Irish descent. She is the eldest daughter in the family, with three older brothers, Bob, Dave and Jeff, and a younger sister, Tina. Her mother, Carol, remarried when McDougal was nine years old, and the family moved to Sawyer, Michigan, where she remained until college.

McDougal studied tap dance and ballet as a child. Her childhood dream, prior to teaching and modeling, was to become a ballerina. She attended River Valley High School and became a cheerleader, a marching band member, a color guard member, and a volleyball and softball player, as well as Michigan state champion clarinet player, four years in a row in high school. Her high school nickname was "Barbie," due to her wholesome sweetness. After graduating from high school in 1989, she attended Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, majoring in elementary education.

After two years of college, McDougal moved to a Detroit suburb where she taught pre-kindergarten, before being persuaded to try out for a swimsuit competition. One of her professional goals has always been to open a learning center for children, but she put those aspirations on hold to focus on pursuing roles in acting and modeling.

Modeling

McDougal's first modeling assignment was as a promotional model at a Harley-Davidson bike show in Detroit.

Playboy

In 1997, McDougal won a local swimsuit competition, promoted by Venus Swimwear in Michigan, earning her place at the international final in Florida. Her victory caught the eye of Playboy photographer David Mecey. Soon after, Playboy approached her, offering a test shoot at Playboy Studio West, which she accepted. Afterwards, she was promptly invited to return for a more complete photo and video shoot, and was ultimately chosen as Miss December 1997. Her pictorial, by photographers Richard Fegley and Stephen Wayda, has a winter theme and its outdoor portion was shot in snowy fields near Park City, Utah. Her video, the "Playmate Profile," was featured on Playboy TV soon after her magazine debut.

In May 1998, at a luncheon at the Playboy Mansion, it was announced that Hugh Hefner and fans had chosen her as 1998's Playmate of the Year (PMOY).

As part of becoming a PMOY, she received $100,000 and a special-edition silver Shelby Series 1 convertible with a customized Michigan license plate "PMOY 98." McDougal's PMOY pictorial was featured in the July 1998 issue of Playboy, where she also appeared on its cover. In contrast to her Playmate pictorial, her PMOY pictorial has a tropical theme, and its outdoor portion was shot in Saint Lucia. 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. Because of the popularity of the VH1 television series "Pop-up Video" at the time, one of the segments in her PMOY video was done as a Pop-up Video parody, filled with factoids about her and Playboy. 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.

In an online chat in 2002, McDougal expressed interest in posing nude for Playboy again, if offered.

Fitness modeling

In March 1999, McDougal became the first woman to appear on the cover of Men's Fitness magazine. Since then she has expanded her career into fitness and bodybuilding magazines, such as Muscle & Fitness (January 2000), Physical (June 2004), and Iron Man (October 2005, January 2006, June 2007, and November 2009). She appeared in a 10-page pictorial in the January 2006 issue of Iron Man as "Hardbody" of the month, and on the cover of its October 2005 and June 2007 issues. McDougal returned as "Hardbody" of the month in the November 2009 issue in a pictorial together with fellow Playmate Katie Lohmann. In interviews, she said her transition to fitness modeling was unintentional.

Other appearances

In 1999, McDougal was featured as the lead model for a print ad campaign for Patrón. Playboy released a Playboy Collectors' Figure Series limited edition doll in 2002 based on the likeness of McDougal and emphasized that it was an accurate model of her statuesque physique. Her collectors' figure was originally slated to be the first in the series to be released, however it was delayed due to redesigns. McDougal collaborated with fantasy sculptor Bill Toma in creating a limited edition bronze statuette titled Warrior Princess in 2003. McDougal posed for Toma in the creative process and the pedestal of each statuette bears her signature.

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. It was a tennis themed men's fashion spread shot in Las Vegas by photographer David LaChapelle. The spread contained her first published nudes since her contract with Playboy expired years earlier. She traveled to Japan to be one of the eye candies for the wrestling bout between Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (The Outsiders) at Yokohama, Japan in May 2004. 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.

McDougal appeared in the 2005 Playmates at Play at the Playboy Mansion swimsuit calendar as the calendar girl of July. The calendar was the inaugural Playmates at Play calendar and it was shot on the grounds of Playboy Mansion in 2004. It was Playboy's first attempt at creating a non-nude swimsuit calendar featuring Playmates, similar in style with those from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. While all Playmates appeared in bikinis in the calendar, in the case of McDougal and Hiromi Oshima, the "bikinis" were actually only painted on using body paint.

In November 2006, McDougal was part of a trio of Playmates (along with Tina Marie Jordan and Katie Lohmann) that appeared in the "Celebrity Playmate Gift Guide" pictorial of Splat, a magazine for paintball enthusiasts. The pictorial showcased new paintball products for the 2006 holiday season. 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.

Television and film

McDougal appeared in a series of sexy television commercials for XFL football league on NBC and UPN with the theme of "Cheerleaders". These edgy XFL commercials with implied nudity backfired and caused a controversy as they were deemed too risqué by the media, they were quietly withdrawn before the launch of 2001 XFL inaugural (and final) season; the footage was nonetheless repurposed later in the season as a publicity stunt for a halftime telecast.

In 2001, she co-starred with Lisa Dergan in The Arena, a Roger Corman-produced, direct-to-video movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The entire production was shot in Russia. 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. The role offered McDougal her first opportunity to act in a dramatic role and to demonstrate her physical abilities with the movie's sword fighting sequences. The movie, initially titled Gladiatrix, was deemed to be a knockoff of Gladiator. Although the movie was not well received, it has turned into a lesser known cult film.