E. Jean Carroll Says She’ll Do ‘a Lot of Good’ with Trump’s $83 Million: ‘Women Won This One’

The former Elle columnist also said she plans to spend the defamation damages on "something Donald Trump hates" — and she already has an idea

E. Jean Carroll says she'll use the millions in damages she is expected to receive from Donald Trump to "do something good."

On Friday Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million for making defamatory statements about the writer, after an anonymous federal jury made up of seven men and two women deliberated about how much the former president should give Carroll as punishment for disparaging her in 2019 and denying that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

Trump, 77, had already been deemed liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a separate civil trial last spring and ordered to pay the former Elle columnist $5 million in damages.

In a Saturday interview with The New York Times, Carroll, 80, said, “We're going to do something good with it," when asked how she planned to spend the damages.

Related: Donald Trump Ordered to Pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 Million over Defamatory Statements

Speaking to CBS News, Carroll acknowledged that the sum she was awarded last Friday was extraordinary — and perhaps intended to send the former president a message. "I think [the jury] said, 'Enough,'" she said on CBS Mornings. "Who can conceive of $83 million?"

"It's inspiring, this amount of money," she continued. "We can do really a lot of good with this money."

Trump's legal team has already indicated it plans to appeal the latest verdict and it could be years until Carroll gets paid. When she does, she told BBC she also plans to spend it on "something Donald Trump hates."

"If it will cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that's my intent," she told BBC, adding that one idea would be to create a "fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump."

Related: Donald Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll Reacts to Verdict in Emotional Sexual Abuse Trial: 'Overwhelmed with Joy'

Speaking to the Times, Carroll said the win for her was a victim for women everywhere. "This win, more than any other thing, when we needed it the most — after we lost the rights over our own bodies in many states — we put out our flag in the ground on this one. Women won this one. I think it bodes well for the future."

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Elsewhere in her conversation with the Times, Carroll also said the legal victory indicated that the former president was something of an emperor with no clothes — someone who, when stripped of power, is just a man.

"When you've actually faced the man, he's just a man with no clothes on," she told the Times. "It's the people around him that are giving him the power."

Related: Trump Draws Laughter, Applause as He Mocks E. Jean Carroll During CNN Town Hall

Prior to winning the most recent defamation trial, Carroll successfully went up against Trump on sexual abuse and defamation allegations.

In that earlier suit, the writer alleged: "Roughly 27 years ago, playful banter at the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York City took a dark turn when Defendant Donald J. Trump seized Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, forced her up against a dressing room wall, pinned her in place with his shoulder, and raped her."

The complaint further alleged that the incident "severely injured Carroll, causing significant pain and suffering, lasting psychological harms, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy" and sought "redress for her injuries and to demonstrate that even a man as powerful as Trump can be held accountable under the law."

Following a high-profile civil trial last spring, a federal jury found Trump liable of sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her in 2022, and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages. Her 2024 trial centered around separate defamatory claims Trump made in 2019.

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