This post was updated on March 30, 2023, at 5:54 p.m. to reflect the news that Donald Trump has been indicted.
Donald Trump was indicted this week, making him the first former president ever to be formally charged with a crime—surely something Stormy Daniels did not anticipate when she first told her story of her encounter with Trump over a decade ago.
In 2011, when the adult film star first spoke publicly about her alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump, the future president was a media mogul and reality star, but no politician. (The interview, given to the magazine In Touch for $15,000, was killed before publication but published in 2018, after the story broke publicly.)
In October 2016, as that year’s presidential campaign was underway, Daniels, a savvy businesswoman with some resentment over Trump’s hollow promises of putting her on The Apprentice, made it clear she was willing to sell her story. When her attorney told the editor in chief of the National Enquirer that she was willing to go on the record about the affair, Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 for her silence. It wasn’t until 2018, when the Wall Street Journal reported on the payment, that the story moved from tabloid fodder to courtroom material. Daniels sued Trump over the nondisclosure agreement she had signed, arguing that it was not valid. Since then, Daniels’ public identity has become defined by lawsuits, investigations, and political scandal.
She is clearly relishing the idea of causing Donald Trump legal troubles, but she has expressed some regret at having become so entangled in politics. And she has also been ordered to pay Trump $300,000 in legal fees over a defamation suit she filed in 2018.
But mostly Daniels has found herself juggling opportunities that have come from this sudden blast of fame: She wrote a book, made merchandise, embarked on a cross-country tour, starred on reality TV, and pitched a show about the paranormal. (Somehow, though, she has not yet appeared on Dancing With the Stars.)
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was a pornographic actress and director before all of this, and she continues to direct and write adult films, taking particular pride in her directing work. In 2018 she launched a national “Make America Horny Again” tour on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. The tour—to strip clubs around the country—capitalized on her story, with flyers promising “THE PORN STAR THAT TRUMPS THEM ALL” and “THE PORN STAR WORTH $130,000.” It was, according to the various journalistic dispatches around that time, a crowd-drawing success. (It was also the cause of Daniels’ arrest in Columbus, Ohio, when she was charged with violating the city’s law banning nude or partially nude dancers from touching patrons. She sued over what has been described as a politically motivated arrest, and the city settled out of court.)
That same year, she published a memoir, Full Disclosure, which detailed her affair with Trump. In May 2018, she appeared on Saturday Night Live, promising a fictionalized Trump that “a storm’s a-coming, baby.” In November 2019, the rapper YG called Daniels onstage at a show in Los Angeles to help perform his hit song “FDT.” “My name is Stormy fucking Daniels, and I am the reason Donald Trump is fucked,” she told the crowd.
Daniels started putting out merchandise, promoting her calendars and signed photos and #TeamStormy T-shirts in tweet responses to angry Trump supporters online. She developed a comic book series called Stormy Daniels: Space Force. (It features an orange-hued governmental figure.) She also held 15 sold-out standup shows in 2019.
And then there’s her reality TV turn. In 2018, she dropped out of her planned appearance on Celebrity Big Brother because of a private family matter. In 2022, Daniels appeared in the reboot of the VH1 series The Surreal Life alongside Dennis Rodman, Frankie Muniz, and Tamar Braxton, among others. She told OK! that she decided to come on the show when she realized it offered a chance to “tell the story from our side without any editors or coaching or scripting.” (She admitted that her book had also been that type of opportunity but that she had “learned America doesn’t read, so you have to put it on reality TV.”)
On the show, she told her castmates, “I’m probably, unfortunately, most famous for the worst 90 seconds of my life that I spent with Donald Trump. And in standing up to him, I lost everything.”
She hit greater success when she landed her own hosting role for a show on OutTV. For the Love of DILFs, a raunchy show in the style of Love Island, features a group of younger men (himbos) and slightly older men (daddies) competing to win a $10,000 prize, find love among their fellow contestants, and, more importantly, have a good time. Daniels has been confirmed as the host for a second season.
While promoting For the Love of DILFs, Daniels told OK! she was tired of being asked about the affair. “Every time he pops out, I wish he would go away,” she said of Trump.
“I hope seeing Trump naked was not for nothing,” she added. “I can hopefully spin it and bring attention to other things, like this incredible new show.”
Daniels’ lawyer during the 2018 lawsuit was Michael Avenatti, who achieved his own fame through his proximity to Daniels. He appeared often in cable news programs and late-night talk shows to criticize Trump and other conservative politicians and even considered a presidential run himself. Avenatti is now in prison over a variety of criminal matters, including obstructing the IRS’s efforts to collect taxes on his coffee business, attempting to extort more than $20 million from Nike, and, most importantly, defrauding four clients of millions of dollars. In 2022, Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing $300,000 from Daniels’ book advance.
During that trial (he chose to represent himself), the public learned, somewhat incidentally, that Daniels’ newest career turn had nothing to do with politics and the adult film world. She had become a paranormal investigator, it turns out, and for several years—at least until For the Love of DILFs began—she had been pitching a paranormal TV show called Spooky Babes. She shot several episodes of Spooky Babes around the country, inspired by her personal experiences, she claimed, with paranormal activity in a haunted house she moved into in New Orleans. The point of the show, she said, was to help those who, like her, were affected by the paranormal and seeking protection and healing. Daniels shares this interest in the mysterious and unexplained with her newest husband, the porn star Barrett Blade, whom she married last year. Blade sells alien-themed clothing in addition to Daniels’ merchandise.
Never one to miss out on promotional opportunities, Daniels, who says she is a medium, has promoted her oracle card readings at her appearances at adult industry events. She also brought a haunted doll, Susan, on to The Surreal World, earning the ire of her roommate on the show. “From what I’ve read, people said I didn’t come off crazy,” she told OK! “I am like, ‘I showed up with a haunted doll, and I came off the least crazy?’ OK, I’m good with that!’ ”
But perhaps the strangest media appearance Daniels has made was on Michael Cohen’s podcast in 2021, when she reconciled with the man who arranged her alleged hush money payment. In that episode, she acknowledged that her celebrity had given her opportunities for success and access to “places I would never get to go.” But she also lamented the strangeness of it all. “If I could just wave a magic wand and make everything go back to the way it was before,” she said, “I would absolutely do that.”
