E. Jean Carroll on 'Comedy Gold' of Trump Trial and How She'll Spend $83M
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
On the eve of her book release, E. Jean Carroll stepped into Manhattan's Newsweek office in a muted olive-green jumpsuit, shimmery brown blazer and cream lace-up combat boots. With her signature blond bob in place, she restated her mission: to make President Donald Trump "so mad" by spending the $83.3 million she's owed in the lawsuit settlements on causes he hates.
At 81, Carroll—twice victorious against Trump in separate court cases—has quietly penned a new book, Not My Type, turning the infamous words the president used to dismiss her sexual assault allegations, on themselves.
Subtitled One Woman vs. a President, the book chronicles Carroll's legal battles against Trump in which juries unanimously found Trump guilty of sexual assault and defamation. He was not found guilty of rape. He is ordered to pay Carroll a total, with accruing interest, around $88 million: $5 million from the first case and $83.3 million from the second.
A U.S. appeals court last week rejected Trump's bid to overturn the $5 million verdict. He is still appealing the separate $83.3 million judgment, arguing that presidential immunity should protect him.
Blending courtroom transcripts with her raw, often humorous stream-of-consciousness, Carroll brings an intimate and comedic lens to the trials about her 1996 sexual assault by Trump in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman department store.
"The whole thing to me was like a high comedy," she told Newsweek, describing the trials.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva
Carroll writes with the same playful cadence and eccentric flair that defines her voice, which is undeniably that of a decades-long Elle columnist. She told Newsweek that the book came together largely thanks to voice notes she recorded at the end of each trial day, reflecting for sometimes 20, sometimes 45 minutes.
"I could go on and on describing Alina Habba's outfits," she said of Trump's lawyer, who now serves as acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. Carroll's eye for detail frequently dissects wardrobe choices, while her courtroom retelling reads like theater.
In the book, she describes Manhattan's federal courtroom as "one of New York's great runways." Some scenes unfold like boxing rounds, with Carroll's commentary bringing the script to life, depicting lawyers landing jabs and witnesses ducking and countering. Some key figures, like Trump's high-profile defense attorney Joe Tacopina, stand out as characters in the book.
"He has an arc," Carroll tells Newsweek, noting her perceived character development of Tacopina. Though she recalls him tossing metaphorical punches at her friend, veteran journalist Carol Martin, while she was on the witness stand, Carroll told Newsweek, "I always liked him all the way through, even though I hated him."
Tacopina, whom she described as having "glittering eyes," a booming voice, "built like Popeye," with a "waist of a runway model," congratulates Carroll on winning the first case. He, however, withdraws from representing Trump in the second trial.
'Comedy Gold'
"I want you to be as discombobulated as I am when we go to trial," she told Newsweek, explaining why she started the book by plunging into her deposition, forgoing any orienting introduction.
"We are thrown immediately to Alina Habba Esq., Trump's most beautiful attorney, asking me to list my lovers. Now, who is not going to find that funny," she remarked.
The beginning pages do in fact chronicle Carroll's lovers, which include not one but two Olympic athletes, setting a comedic, almost satirical tone for a book with sexual assault at its center.
"It was one of the great moments in the deposition," Carroll reflected, "because I liked my lovers. I have very fond memories of my lovers, I mean, each one was more fabulous than the last," she said.
The book is scaffolded around the court transcripts, to which she refers as "probably the most comedic script ever written since Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels."
With a grin, she described the transcripts as "comedy gold."
From debates over doors, to listing lovers, to the moment Trump misidentified Carroll as his ex-wife Marla Maples, despite insisting he'd never seen her and that "she's not my type," there are threads of humor in what Carroll described as a "very surreal" experience featuring "people with a gaggle of unbelievable characters."
"Don't you feel like we should pass out popcorn with this book?" she asked Newsweek.
More Than a Legal Victory
Beyond holding Trump accountable, Carroll's courtroom victories, spearheaded by her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, to whom Carroll dedicates the book and calls a "once in a generation legal mind," helped shatter the myth of the "perfect" sexual assault victim. In both the trial and the book, Trump's legal team presses her on the fact that she didn't scream, but rather laughed, at the beginning of the assault.
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, left, departs Manhattan federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan on May 1, 2023, in New York City.
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, left, departs Manhattan federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan on May 1, 2023, in New York City.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
"It certainly stirred up the women across the country when they heard how I was attacked for not screaming," Carroll said.
"Women do not behave one way or the other in these circumstances. Everyone is different. So, I'm glad that came out. That was a very satisfying victory for the women to be heard across the country about what bulls*** it is, how women who are being assaulted all have to act the same way."
Carroll says the trials "sparked the fire in old ladies everywhere. There is no question."
With the expected influx of tens of millions from the settlement, she is setting up the E. Jean Carroll Foundation. "My mission is to make him so angry and so mad by taking this $83.3 million and giving it to things that Trump hates. That's what I'm doing," she explained.
She outlined the areas of focus that will "make him very, very angry," as "women's reproductive rights, binding up the wounds that he's inflicting on democracy and shoring up voting rights."
Carroll found it "stunning" that Trump was elected to a second term after the trials, partially attributing his presidential victory to the fact that "people don't believe women when they're saying one thing and a very, very powerful man is saying something else."
While she maintains "complete, 100 percent faith" in the courts to preserve democracy, she also urged people to take to the streets in protest of Trump.
" Women have the power. We just have to realize it. We hold, as they say, the purse strings," she said.
While Carroll and her legal team have become icons to some, seeing her as proof of the power women can wield against one of the world's most powerful men, she remains a target for threats from Trump supporters and others.
At night, she sleeps beside a "sleek and very svelte" Mossberg shotgun named Aphrodite, along with her two enormous dogs, a trinity she says helps her feel protected.
In the wake of the yearslong courtroom drama with Trump, Carroll's pit bull and Great Pyrenees help provide her with a sound sleep these days. And the Greek goddess of love, pleasure and beauty is also at the ready.
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