In a revealing interview on America’s 60 minutes program, Stephanie Clifford, more commonly known by her porn star name “Stormy Daniels”, claimed that she hand consensual, unprotected sex with the now US president Donald Trump in 2006. She admitted that she was lured in by the possibility of appearing on Trump’s then hit reality show The Apprentice, despite not being attracted to him.
Ever since the encounter with Trump, Daniels said she has been routinely threatened to keep quiet about the affair. Daniels alleged that she slept with Trump in one of his Lake Tahoe hotel rooms and believed she would get a fast track to a commercial TV career.
Daniels said that in the hotel room Trump showed her a magazine with him on the cover. She then claims Trump said that someone should use the magazine to “spank you with it”.
Daniels, going along with Trump’s flirtation, then proceeded to have intercourse with him. Apparently the encounter did not occur long after the birth of Trump’s son, Baron.
She said that Trump spoke about himself very often during the alleged encounter, at one point saying that Daniels reminded him of his daughter.
Although Daniels alleges that Trump strung her along for many months, she did not end up with a mainstream TV career. She did however receive a steady stream of threats and intimidation to keep quiet about the affair.
Daniels said that she, after agreeing to sell the story to a magazine, was threatened in a car park in 2011. She said that a unknown man walked up to her and said “leave Trump alone” and that it would “be a shame if something happened” to Daniels, in view of her daughter.
Daniels said that the threats resumed in 2016 in the run up to Donald Trump’s election campaign where she theorised that her affair with Donald Trump could jeopardise his chances of winning. She was offered a deal by Michal Cohen, one of Trump’s lawyers, to accept 130,000 USD not to make the story public.
Despite accepting what she called “hush money” and signing a statement denying the affair, Daniels has now come out publically saying that the affair did in fact take place. Daniels said that she felt pressured to take the money and that she “had no choice”.
So far, Donald Trump’s lawyers have threatened to sue Daniels for tens of millions of dollars for violating her non-disclosure agreement.