Carroll Says She Wants to Use Windfall to Bring 'Real Changes'

It will take time to decide the best use of the $83.3 million in damages a jury awarded her Friday in her claim against Donald Trump, but E. Jean Carroll has reached a couple of conclusions. "I'm not going to waste a cent of this," she said. "We're going to do something good with it." In an interview Saturday with the New York Times, Carroll said she was just starting to savor her court victory. "It was so overpowering yesterday, I couldn't feel the elation," the writer said. "This morning, around 8 or 9, having my first cup of tea, is when I truly felt calm enough to feel what we had accomplished."

Trump said he'll appeal the defamation award, which is on top of the $5 million a different jury told him to pay Carroll last spring after finding he was liable for sexually abusing her in 1996. That would mean more litigation is ahead, which Carroll and her lawyers are preparing for. And she has to make decisions about her windfall; as of 2018, she testified during the trial, she was making about $50,000 a year as a freelance writer. Carroll, 80, said Saturday she wants to use the money to bring out real changes. "I can't say what they are yet," she said. "We will all talk and come up with a great plan."

Carroll described the verdict as, more than anything, a victory for women. "I think it bodes well for the future," she told the Times. For weeks before testifying, Carroll said, she was frightened about confronting Trump, who had publicly taunted her for years, from the witness stand. The fear evaporated that day in court. "When you've actually faced the man, he's just a man with no clothes on," Carroll said. "It's the people around him that are giving him the power." (More E. Jean Carroll stories.)