Who is Stormy Daniels? A retired porn actress who got Trump indicted

International

oi-Prakash KL

Porn star of yesteryears Stormy Daniels is very much in the news after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former US President Donald Trump for his role in paying hush money for her. This has made Trump the first person in the history of the US to serve as Commander-in-Chief and then be charged with a crime.

History-sheet of Daniels

Stormy Daniels came to global light after Wall Street Journal came up with a report about her affair and the payoff from Trump in 2018. 44-year-old Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She graduated from Scotlandville Magnet High School in Baton Rouge in 1997 and wanted to become a journalist.

Going by her 2018 autobiography, She was neglected by her family and sexually abused at the age of nine by an older man. Nonetheless, she was good in studies and passionate about horses. She turned stripteaser for her living and then ventured into porn industry.
She was a popular name in the adult film business for more than two decades. Apart from acting, she also directed numerous videos.

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Trump links

She had her first counter with Trump in July 2006 during a charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, on the border between California and Nevada. In numerous interviews, she claimed that they had consensual sex once in his hotel room at Lake Tahoe. She was 27 then while Trump was 60.

It has to be noted that Trump’s wife Melania had given birth to their baby and she was not at Lake Tahoe at that time. According to Daniels’ account, the ex-US President invited her for a dinner in his suite. She claims they went on to have what “may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had.”

However, just days before Trump was elected President in 2016, his former attorney Michael Cohen arranged a wire transfer of USD 1,30,000 to Daniels in exchange for her silence about their alleged affair. Cohen has said in court that he made the settlement “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump. Cohen was jailed from 2018-20 on multiple charges.

It it this payment which has landed the former US President in trouble. After the transaction was revealed in 2018, Daniels asked courts to nullify her non-disclosure agreement with Trump and began making the rounds on television shows.

“I’m not a victim,” she said on CBS’s 60 Minutes. The porn actress was also clear-eyed about the promises she said Trump made regarding a possible role in the hit show ‘The Apprentice’, in which he starred.

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On asking whether he was trying to lure her, she said, “Of course. I mean, I’m not blind. But at the same time, maybe it’ll work out,” she said, adding that she saw the relationship as a potential career boost.

Daniels, who gave serious consideration to running for a US Senate seat from Louisiana in 2010, has a daughter. Last year, she tied the knot with her fourth husband and fellow porn actor Barrett Blade.