Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti announced on Monday morning that the porn actress, who got paid $130,000 to never speak of her alleged tryst with Donald Trump, is splitting with her husband:
This is all very interesting, because to get a divorce, a person has to be married—which means Stormy Daniels has been married this whole time.
A poll of 28 Slate staffers, all of whom are extremely smart and pay extremely close attention to the news, revealed that just 10.7 percent knew Daniels was married. Twitter users were similarly amazed when they got word of Daniels’ impending divorce:
If one so desired, one could make the argument that this confusion stems from the sexist notion that a woman who strips, directs porn, and goes around sleeping with disgusting reality show hosts cannot be married—or, at least, that no man would want to marry her. This writer does not care to make that argument right now. In this moment, it feels more important to note that, given how Daniels has so determinedly thrust herself into the public eye since news of the Trump hush-money payment broke, it is a remarkable accomplishment to have kept so many people in the dark about such a significant part of her personal life. As Daniels revealed explicit details about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump and launched a national strip-club tour on the strength of the Trump brand, she addressed the impact of the Trump story on her young daughter, but rarely, if ever, mentioned a husband. An observant public accustomed to knowing all the basic facts about characters in salacious news stories would have expected her to address her marital status, at least in passing, especially considering the sexual nature of the story behind her rise to mainstream celebrity status.
But Daniels’ third and current husband Glen Crain, an eyeliner-wearing porn actor who goes by the moniker Brendon Miller, has remained conspicuously absent from Daniels’ public-facing identity. Her Instagram page, where she promotes her shows and posts selfies while riding horses, features only one photo of our man Glen, from February, with no identifying tag or caption. On one hand, he hasn’t exactly seized the moment to elevate his own profile in the way another H-list celebrity might. On the other hand, Daniels’ brand is built on an image of her as a ready-to-rock potential sexual target and partner for her male fans—an image her husband could have compromised. On the third hand, Daniels has halfheartedly tried to underscore her own respectability in an effort to convince the public that she’s a reliable narrator when it comes to Trump. A husband named Glen could have supported that messaging, had both parties agreed to push that branding concept. Instead, Glen will go down in the history of the Trump presidency as a quiet bystander who disappeared before we got the chance to know him.
