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

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.

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.

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“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.”

Image zoom Karen McDougal (left) and Ivanka Trump Jim Smeal/BEI/REX/Shutterstock; CHANCE YEH /Patrick McMullan/Getty

“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.”