"I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun."

But after a lukewarm start, several TV channels and print outlets are pursuing her allegations. In hindsight, Carroll says, she didn’t fully anticipate the impact of a rape allegation against the president, compared with the accusations that preceded hers. “We didn’t weigh them or see it coming. I just wrote 11 pages about Trump. We don’t even mention him on the cover of the book. I thought there might be a little brouhaha, but that was it. I didn’t think it through.”

She has thought it through now, though. “I’m not stupid,” she says. “You saw what’s beside my bed.”