Former president Donald Trump was charged in New York with falsifying business records, in a case that involves a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to know about Daniels and what she says happened with Trump.<\/p>\n
Daniels \u2014 whose real name is Stephanie Clifford \u2014 is an adult-film actress and director who was born in Baton Rouge. She was well known in the adult-film industry, where she won awards, and also made brief cameos in a number of movies by director Judd Apatow, including \u201cThe 40-Year-Old Virgin.\u201d<\/p>\n
She describes herself as a \u201cparanormal investigator\/medium\u201d on Twitter and is known for having a fondness for horses.<\/p>\n
In her 2018 memoir, \u201cFull Disclosure,\u201d Daniels detailed an unhappy childhood with an absent father, as well as grim episodes of sexual abuse by a child molester when she was 9. In high school, where she says she excelled academically, she began working as a stripper and later moved on to performing, writing and directing in the adult-film industry. She has said that her childhood abuse played no role in her career choice, and that she is proud of her success in the industry.<\/p>\n
In 2009, Daniels considered a run for the U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana then held by David Vitter, a family-values Republican linked to a prostitution ring run by the \u201cD.C. Madam,\u201d saying that voters had drafted her. Ultimately, she did not run, but her campaign generated national media attention. At one point, she told reporters her campaign slogan would be \u201cScrewing People Honestly.\u201d On another occasion, in a 2009 interview posted on YouTube, Daniels said: \u201cCall me what you will, but you can\u2019t call me a hypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels became a global name in 2018, after she claimed she had an affair with Donald Trump during a celebrity golf tournament at a Lake Tahoe resort in 2006. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.<\/p>\n
Daniels told journalists in interviews that she met Trump at a golf tournament and was invited to dine with him at his hotel suite in 2006. In her account, they went on to have consensual sex. She was 27 at the time, and Trump was 60 and already married to his wife, Melania.<\/p>\n
Trump \u2014 who is campaigning to return to the White House in 2024 \u2014 has denied the relationship.<\/p>\n
Daniels\u2019s allegations were not made public until 2018 \u2014 and received major media attention after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump\u2019s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, negotiated a secret $130,000 payment to secure her silence days before the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n
In a widely watched interview on CBS\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in 2018, Daniels spoke in detail about her alleged 2006 meeting with Trump, saying that he tried to impress her by showing a magazine with his face on the cover, and that they joked about her spanking him with it.<\/p>\n
Cohen has said he called Daniels after Trump won the GOP nomination, offering to pay her in exchange for keeping quiet. He said he had been acting at Trump\u2019s direction and that the payment was aimed at influencing the 2016 election by keeping Daniels\u2019s story from becoming public.<\/p>\n
Daniels said she took the money in fall 2016 to protect her infant child and her career. She said she felt pressured into signing a nondisclosure agreement and statement denying the affair took place \u2014 but spoke out after the Wall Street Journal reported on the payment.<\/p>\n
Trump has denied her claims, saying, \u201cI never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had initially denied knowledge of the payment, before later admitting he had authorized Cohen to make it. However, he said, the payment was made to stop what he called Daniels\u2019s \u201cfalse and extortionist accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels has spoken of the \u201ctoll\u201d the public spotlight has taken on her \u201cmentally and physically after months and months of always looking over your shoulder,\u201d she told Dutch media in 2018, adding that she now travels with bodyguards.<\/p>\n
She said her decision to speak up was partly a response to feeling \u201cbullied\u201d by Trump and his associates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI may never have a normal life again,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it was totally worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A mother of one, she has also said the stress of her public role contributed to the breakdown of her marriage at the time.<\/p>\n
But she underscored to CNN in 2018: \u201cI\u2019m not a victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thank you to everyone for your support and love! I have so many messages coming in that I can\u2019t respond\u2026also don\u2019t want to spill my champagne #Teamstormy merch\/autograph orders are pouring in, too! Thank you for that as well but allow a few extra days for shipment.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 30, 2023<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mark Berman, Frances Stead Sellers, Paul Farhi, Shayna Jacobs, Josh Dawsey, Devlin Barrett, Jacqueline Alemany and Derek Hawkins contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump was charged in New York with falsifying business records, in a case that involves a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Here\u2019s what to know about Daniels and what she says happened with Trump. Daniels \u2014 whose real name is Stephanie Clifford \u2014 is an adult-film actress and director who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}