![Donald Trump, 60, met the 27-year-old porn actress on a golf course at a celebrity tournament in Nevada](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000170825873_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqG6uvMzRsA2gL76S9bNdwvu3WfxrcSCoOtYEZMlGjQ7w.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Stormy Daniels: The porn star who took centre stage at Trump’s hush money trial
Former president found guilty on all 34 counts
![Donald Trump, 60, met the 27-year-old porn actress on a golf course at a celebrity tournament in Nevada](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000170825873_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqG6uvMzRsA2gL76S9bNdwvu3WfxrcSCoOtYEZMlGjQ7w.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Any hopes porn star Stormy Daniels had of retreating into a life of quiet domesticity with her fourth husband, fellow adult film performer Barrett Blade, and their horses on a ranch in Florida have evaporated.
Donald Trump has been found guilty by a Manhattan grand jury over a $130,000 (£105,000) hush money payment to the porn star, throwing the 2024 election into uncharted territory.
Mr Trump, 77, has become the first former president to be convicted of a crime after being found guilty on all 34 counts.
He now faces potential jail time over his convictions and will be sentenced on July 11, fours days before the Republican National Convention where he is set to receive the party’s presidential nomination.
![Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels were photographed together at the booth for her porn studio, Wicked Pictures, in July 2006](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000329627947_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwWPw2b5__oFarkj5WlWIJuI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Mr Trump denied having sex with either woman or any knowledge of the hush payment, and lashed out at Juan Merchan, who presided over the case.
“This was a rigged disgraceful trial,” he said, following the verdict. “We didn’t do a thing wrong. I’m a very innocent man... our whole country is being rigged right now.”
It has also thrown Ms Daniels’s account of that fateful night in July 2006 back into the spotlight.
Who is Stormy Daniels?
Ms Daniels began her career as a dancer in her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when as a 17-year-old she visited a strip club and was persuaded to perform a “guest set”.
“I made enough money on two songs to make more than I did all week answering phones at the riding stable that I worked at,” she later told the New York Times.
Working from the 11-hour shifts until the early hours of the morning, she began headlining shows across the state and within a few years had moved over to pornography – first as an actress, then a writer and director.
Ms Daniels was reportedly an exacting boss, who would sack under-performers and at one point demanded an actor change his “dumb” stage name.
She also made appearances in mainstream films, including the 2000s rom-com The 40-year-old Virgin and Knocked Up.
Judd Apatow, who directed her in both films, recalled her as a “very serious businesswoman and a filmmaker”. He added: “She is not someone to be underestimated.”
In 2009, Ms Daniels publicly mulled running for the US Senate in Louisiana after the incumbent was engulfed in a prostitution scandal.
She declared herself a Republican and told reporters that her campaign slogan would be: “Screwing People Honestly.” She later ruled herself out of the race.
Golf course encounter
Then a flamboyant entrepreneur and reality TV star on NBC’s hit show The Apprentice, Mr Trump, 60, met the 27-year-old on a golf course at a celebrity tournament in Nevada.
He had travelled there alone, leaving behind his third wife Melania with their newborn son, Barron.
Mr Trump and Ms Daniels bumped into each other again later that day in the gift room and were photographed together at the booth for her porn studio, Wicked Pictures.
He invited her to dinner in his penthouse suite at the flashy Harrah’s Lake Tahoe hotel and casino, and she agreed.
Ms Daniels turned up in a spangly gold dress and strappy heels, she said, while he was wearing black silk pyjamas and slippers.
![Donald Trump on the first tee during the 2006 American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000329637281_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqTkrkcSYhDB4YUVkRQxhjn-GycdI3HsguW21AR44oh8c.jpeg?imwidth=350)
He told her he could put her on The Apprentice.
“Just to impress you, to try to sleep with you?” a reporter from In Touch Weekly magazine would later ask. “Yeah,” Ms Daniels responded. “And I guess it worked.”
They then slept together, she has claimed.
She said he continued to phone her, calling her “honeybunch”, and they saw each other a couple more times, but did not sleep together again.
And that might have been that if it wasn’t for Mr Trump’s ultimately abortive decision to run for president in 2011.
Kiss-and-tell interview
In exchange for $15,000, Ms Daniels gave an interview about that night to In Touch Weekly, but Trump fixer Michael Cohen got wind of it and threatened to sue the magazine. The article wasn’t published and she wasn’t paid.
In 2016, she tried to sell the story again. This time, with Mr Trump on the cusp of winning the election, the stakes were higher.
Mr Cohen stepped in again to kill the story, offering her $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
![Michael Cohen (centre) at the New York District Attorney's office before testifying to a Manhattan grand jury earlier in May](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000328896462_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqkUE_BTgBOQu3VWKvpDGX9QidJvfuFJmBq3TREsU3sqM.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Ms Daniels signed her copy on the trunk of a car near a porn set in California. Mr Cohen signed on Mr Trump’s behalf.
After some delay, Mr Cohen eventually used his own money to pay her, an act that would later land him in jail.
But Mr Trump is alleged to have both instructed the payoff and signed checks to reimburse Mr Cohen after he was in the White House.
In the end, the money was wasted.
The story came out anyway two years later in 2018 when Ms Daniels sued Mr Trump in an attempt to overturn the NDA and In Touch Weekly published the kiss-and-tell article.
Reality star
Since then, the porn actress has not shied away from capitalising on the publicity.
She launched a perfume called Truth with the tagline: “It’s the bomb! Sensual living. Stormy Daniels Embrace your Truth.”
In July 2018, she was arrested by undercover police officers during an undercover vice operation at a strip club in Columbus, Ohio.
She was accused of illegally touching a guest at Sirens Gentlemen’s Club.
Michael Avenatti, her lawyer at the time, described the charges – which were dropped the following day – as politically motivated.
Ms Daniels had the last laugh, agreeing to a $450,000 settlement with the city.
Her memoir, Full Disclosure, written with journalist Kevin Carr O’Leary, was published a month later.
One reviewer described the book as “more flashy than thoughtful” but it contained enough salacious detail to satisfy her readers.
![Stormy Daniels pictured in the UK in 2018](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2023/03/20/TELEMMGLPICT000181047598_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqKVkCME5JAwHHo3UriQDlcighTIoWFAR9toR_Of_RRQE.jpeg?imwidth=350)
In July 2021, the VH1 television channel announced she would appear in the resurrecting hit series, The Surreal Life, an American celebrity reality show.
The show premiered last October and included Ms Daniels teaching aspiring porn stars the tricks of the trade.
And last November she was named as the host of “For The Love of DILFs,” a dating show for gay men on the LGBT network, OUTtv.
Ms Daniels has also become a film director, with her latest project Lawless featuring her new beau, with whom she shares a love of horses.
She wed fellow porn actor Russell “Barret” Blade in December. The couple has settled on a farm in Florida where they own horses.
“Thank you @barrettblade777 for giving me my dream home, life and family,” she wrote on Instagram shortly after they got married.
“The diamonds and amazing sex are awesome too!”