Stormy Daniels
Stormy Daniels opens up about her alleged fling with Donald Trump, while the US chief falls back to a familiar line
Defying US President Donald Trump’s lawyers and their threat to come after her for $US20 million, adult-film star Stormy Daniels told her story on US 60 Minutes on March 25 to ratings even he might envy: 22 million people tuned in (2 million more than for Trump’s own previous appearance on the CBS program in 2016) to hear alleged details of her having sex with Trump 12 years ago, and his lawyers’ recent attempts to keep her quiet about it. The White House refused to say whether Trump, 71, had watched. “I’m not going to get into what the President may or may not have seen,” Deputy White House Press Secretary Raj Shah told reporters. “The President doesn’t believe that any of the claims Ms Daniels made in the interview are accurate.”
Among those claims: Trump didn’t use a condom in their single sexual encounter; she wasn’t “at all” physically attracted to him; he promised her a spot on Celebrity Apprentice; and after she gave an interview in 2011 to In Touch that was later shelved, a man menaced her in a car park as she buckled her infant daughter (now 7) into her car seat. “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,” Daniels said he told her. “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
The day after the CBS interview, Trump tweeted a generic, “So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate.” His wife, Melania, remained in Florida at the Trump-owned Mar-a-lago resort with the couple’s son, Barron, 12, and dodged questions about her own TV viewing. (By Easter Sunday, the First Lady was back with her husband in Washington, D.C., for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.)
There was no hiding for Daniels, 39 (real name Stephanie Clifford). “She feels a significant weight on her shoulders,” her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, tells WHO. “She is determined and she is not going away.” Hours
after the show, she filed an amended lawsuit accusing Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen—who says he paid her $US130,000 days before the 2016 election to sign a nondisclosure agreement—of defaming her and breaking campaign-finance law. And Daniels’s “Make America Horny Again” strip routine is booked through August—earning her triple what she commanded before her name was linked to Trump in a Jan. 12 Wall Street Journal story. “She’s a great businesswoman,” says her booking agent, Danny Capozzi. “Everyone wants to book Stormy. It’s a question of who can afford her.” •