Reality star Kelly Dodd is paddling away from the growing controversy swirling over President Donald Trump’s botched Reflecting Pool renovations.
The Real Housewives of Orange County alum was dragged into Trump’s vanity project debacle when The New York Times revealed that the company the president tasked with installing a water-purification system to prevent algae bloom at the Reflecting Pool is owned by John J. Cafaro, a long-time Trump supporter and two-time felon.
One of the photos of Cafaro, 74, that quickly made the rounds showed the Trump donor posing alongside Dodd, 50, with a cigar clenched between his teeth at Trump National Golf Club in Florida. Dodd had posted the photo on Instagram in December 2025.
On Monday, the reality star told TMZ that she has no personal relationship with Cafaro, insisting she had no idea who he was at the time and knew nothing about his background or business dealings. Cafaro pleaded guilty to bribing a congressman and violating campaign finance laws in the early 2000s.
Kelly, who said she attended the event with her husband, Newsmax reporter Rick Leventhal, claimed she posed for a photo with Cafaro only because she thought he looked “funny,” saying his appearance resembled that of a Hollywood villain.
Trump and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani also attended the event at the golf club.
The 80-year-old had bragged for months about repainting and revamping the massive pool on the National Mall, but less than 24 hours after the project was completed, the pool turned green with algae.
Federal contracting records show the National Park Service bypassed the government’s usual competitive-bidding process and awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract to install a water purification system to the Ohio-based firm Greenwater Services, a company owned by Cafaro.
The government handed another no-bid contract worth more than $13 million—more than seven times Trump’s original estimate of $1.8 million—to the Virginia firm Atlantic Industrial Coatings to apply blue waterproofing material on the pool’s concrete floor, which has traditionally been painted gray.
After the water became infested with algae, the new blue coating also began peeling off in sheets.
Workers have been trying to remove the Reflecting Pool’s green slime by vacuuming out the algae and adding hydrogen peroxide to the water to kill it.
