Stormy Daniels said Saturday that her work in the porn industry has helped her prepare for the international attention she faces on the eve of a much-anticipated television interview about her alleged affair with Donald Trump and the hush money she says she received to keep it quiet.
“Being in the adult industry, I’ve developed a thick skin and maybe a little bit of a dark sense of humor,” she told The Washington Post. “But nothing could truly prepare someone for this.”
Daniels is scheduled to be the star attraction of the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening, a broadcast that caps a two-week media blitz by her attorney, Michael Avenatti. As Daniels’ image and story have become 24/7 fodder for cable news shows, Avenetti has hinted repeatedly that there are more details yet to come out – including in a tweet Friday suggesting that he has a DVD with new information.
In a brief interview Saturday evening, with Avenatti on the line, Daniels sounded upbeat, even as she acknowledged that the media circus she’s attracted has changed her day-to-day life as a wife, mother and adult-film director.
“Without a doubt it’s cutting into my horse show time,” said Daniels, who is an avid equestrian. “And time with friends.”
The “60 Minutes” broadcast comes just 72 hours after former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal spoke to CNN about her own alleged affair with now-President Trump. McDougal has sued to break free of a confidentiality agreement that was struck in the months before the 2016 election, for which she was paid $150,000. McDougal says she signed her contract with the parent company of the National Enquirer, which is helmed by a friend of Trump’s, and which bought her story not to publish it, but to bury it.
Both women say their relationships with Trump began in 2006 and ended in 2007 and that they were paid for their silence in the months before the 2016 presidential election.
Representatives of Trump have dismissed the allegations of McDougal and Daniels, saying that the affairs never happened and that Trump had no knowledge of any payments.
But the two prime time interviews – along with a judge’s decision this week to let a defamation lawsuit filed by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who alleges Trump groped her, move forward – have intensified the spotlight on the president’s history with women.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told her story long before Trump was elected president: In 2011, she gave an interview to the tabloid In Touch. But the interview was not published at the time. In 2016, during the final months of the presidential campaign, she again started talking to media outlets, though she did not give another interview.
Instead, she and her former lawyer struck a deal with Trump attorney Michael Cohen, according to Daniels’ lawsuit. In late October, just days before the presidential election, Daniels was paid $130,000 in exchange for her silence, the lawsuit says. The Wall Street Journal revealed the payment in January, and In Touch published its interview with Daniels not long afterward.
Beyond titillating details of a porn star’s affair with the now-president, the “60 Minutes” interview could provide new details about that alleged effort to silence Daniels. The payment has become the subject of complaints to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.
Cohen, has said that he made the payment, though he has not said what it was for. The government watchdog group Common Cause argues that the payment was intended to influence the 2016 election by silencing Daniels and therefore was an illegal in-kind contribution to Trump’s campaign. Cohen has called the Common Cause complaints “baseless.”
While her newfound status as a household name has improved her marketability, increasing her fees for strip club appearances, speaking out carries real financial risks for Daniels.
In her lawsuit filed earlier this month, she argues that the agreement she signed – which requires that she stay silent on matters related to Trump and take any dispute to secret arbitration – is null and void because Trump did not actually sign the document. But if the court holds that the agreement is valid, Daniels could owe a hefty bill.
Each violation of the agreement carries a penalty of $1 million. In court documents filed last week, Cohen said that Daniels had already breached the contract at least 20 times and that he intends to collect at least $20 million from her.
Avenatti has been seeking to build anticipation for the “60 Minutes” interview with constant television appearances and enigmatic tweets. Two days after filing a lawsuit against Trump in Los Angeles Superior Court, he tweeted a photograph of himself with Daniels and journalist Anderson Cooper with the Twitter handle @60Minutes and no further comment.
Later he teased the interview with another photo – this one of Cooper and Daniels under a bank of TV studio lights.
On Friday, Avenetti tweeted the photograph of a DVD that he told CNN shows evidence of Daniels’ relationship with Trump and that he called a “warning shot” to Trump and his personal attorney.
Avenatti has also said that his client has received personal threats because of her allegations against Trump. He has said that Daniels will speak about the threats in detail on “60 Minutes.”
Cohen has dismissed that notion, telling Politico that he has “never threatened her in any way and I am unaware of anyone else doing so.”
Daniels told The Post on Saturday that she’s been the target of hatred on social media in recent weeks. But she said she also has been overwhelmed by an outpouring of support. When somebody recently accused her of being a liar on Twitter, she said, she received a flood of messages with hashtags like #Ibelieveyou and #teamstormy.
“I didn’t do this to get any sort of approval from anyone or recognition,” she said. “I simply wanted to tell my personal truth and defend myself.”