Porn star Stormy Daniels helped “60 Minutes” score its highest-rated episode in a decade Sunday night when she described her alleged 2006 fling with Donald Trump.
The CBS newsmagazine averaged 22.1 million viewers for the must-see episode, according to Nielsen – more than double the number for a typical edition of the show, CNN Money reported.
The sit-down with host Anderson Cooper was the most-watched episode since Nov. 16, 2008, when then President-elect Barack Obama and Michelle Obama sat for their first post-election interview.
About 24.5 million viewers tuned in for that episode.
And on Nov. 13, 2016, Lesley Stahl’s interview with Trump after Election Day averaged 19 million viewers.
“Wow, the ratings for @60Minutes last night were their biggest in a year— very nice!” Trump gloated on Twitter after his appearance.
On Monday, the president tweeted what may have been a not-too-subtle reference to the Daniels interview.
“So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate,” he wrote. “But through it all, our country is doing great!”
When CBS distributed its early numbers Monday, NPR’s Tamara Keith tweeted: “This press release from 60 Minutes seems custom designed to drive the president crazy.”
During Sunday’s show, which got a late start because of an NCAA basketball game, Daniels said she only had sex – unprotected – with Trump once and was later threatened not to tell her story to a magazine.
The salacious show got a 5.3 rating among adults aged 25-54 and a 4.0 among adults aged 18-49. The late start meant there could still be some adjustments.
Much speculation had swirled as to whether the show would go down as one of the “most watched” news interviews — including the average of 62 million people who watched Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Michael Jackson in 1993, Deadline reported.
At the time, then-ABC Entertainment chief Ted Harbert exclaimed: “This is why God invented network television.”
In March 1999, when Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinsky on “20/20” about her affair with President Bill Clinton, an average of 48.5 million viewers tuned in, according to Deadline.
Some critics reacted to the Daniels interview by saying it didn’t break a lot of new ground.
But the interview itself was news — representing the vixen’s first time speaking on camera about her alleged affair, the alleged threat and the hush money she received from Trump’s personal lawyer.
Her media-savvy attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted after the show: “Any claim that ‘There was nothing new other than the details of the threat’ is not only false but is also similar to asking ‘Other than the short interruption Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?’”