Stormy Daniels - Full Disclosure

I read every word, including one set of sentences in the second paragraph. It specifically says, “It is an essential element of this Settlement Agreement that the Parties”—Trump and me—“shall never directly or indirectly communicate with each other or attempt to contact their respective families.” “Directly” means I can’t call Trump or Melania and say, “Hey, whatcha wearing?” And he can’t do the same to me or Glen, thank God.

But indirectly? Michael Cohen reached out to me multiple times. There were the two times when he got Davidson to ask me to sign statements, and the one time I initially refused. Then he was shopping a book proposal using my name as a draw, and now he was volunteering to The New York Times that he paid me himself.

All this time, I upheld my end of the contract that I had signed without any negotiation and that I thought Trump had signed as well. I was done being bullied and done being the only one doing what I said I was going to do. I decided they couldn’t intimidate me any longer. I took it and took it again because I thought I was doing the right thing. But what if I was just doing the dumb thing and getting screwed?

They’d repeatedly breached the contract. And I was skeptical about Keith Davidson. I didn’t understand how he and Michael Cohen seemed so chummy, and I worried he was playing both sides. And at the very least, he was a fucking pussy who was incapable of advocating for his client. As a lawyer, if someone approaches you and says, “We want your client to do this,” you either say, “No,” or you say, “What’s in it for my client?” If Michael Cohen kept wanting me to sign more shit, he should have offered me more money. I’m not saying I would have taken it. I’m saying it was never even put on the table or raised as a possibility by Davidson. Also, Davidson would get a huge cut of anything I got. It was a red flag that he never brought any asks to Cohen. But I was afraid to go to another lawyer.

Sure enough, after I approached Davidson with my view that the contract had been breached, he reacted exactly as I suspected he would. He did nothing.

The next day, first thing in the morning Valentine’s Day, Gina gave the story to The Blast, an online celebrity news site. The AP got wind of it and published a story with the headline PORN STAR WHO ALLEGED TRUMP AFFAIR: I CAN NOW TELL MY STORY. For me, it was a declaration that I was done getting screwed every which way but well. For Gina, it was maybe an advertisement that my story was up for sale. Gina had all these offers from people, hundreds of thousands of dollars in play, from TV movies to several reality series options. Separately, my assistant Kayla was using several of her connections to broker a reality show deal that would have been incredibly lucrative for me—and yes, for her. They were focused on instant gratification and a lot of money, and I’m not faulting them. In their defense, this looked like a single-news-cycle story. They had no idea the story would become so much bigger than just a payout, with talk of corruption and cover-ups.

I didn’t tell them that I had started to think that I was tired of not being taken seriously. If I went with Jimmy Kimmel and did the show for free, then it would show people I wasn’t a gold digger. I had a job, and you know I’ve never dated any rich dudes. The American Academy of Gold Diggers would not think much of my membership application. “So let’s see, the guy she moved in with when she was seventeen had a mattress and a couple of CD shelves on the floor,” I can imagine a panel judge saying. “And when she moved in with her husband, who it says here she married for—how quaint—love, he had a mattress… and a skateboard.”

If I’m a gold digger, I’m fucking stupid as shit.

That said, I knew how much a money windfall would change the lives of my friends and family. I felt awful. They had the opportunity to make a lot of money, but I decided they couldn’t because of my morals. I know how it looked: What a pretentious bitch. Me on my pornographic high horse over here.

Now, I just needed a decent lawyer to help me tell my story and really advocate for me. I spoke with one who seemed to take the call just for the curiosity factor. He was a very high-powered lawyer, but I just wasn’t getting the sense that he understood what a big deal this was. He dragged it out for a couple of weeks and was moving so slow, I knew he didn’t share my passion, so I ended it. I was anxious that this guy now knew my story and my strategy for confronting Cohen and Trump. After my experience with Davidson, I didn’t exactly trust lawyers.

The next guy was 100 percent on my side and Mr. Gung Ho. “Oh, yeah,” he said, incredulous about what hapless lawyers Davidson and Cohen were. “You totally have a case here.”

“Great, let’s do this,” I said. He was based in L.A., another high-powered lawyer, and we talked on the phone a few more times. It seemed to be going well, so I felt safe sending him a copy of the NDA I signed. We arranged to meet at his office when I was in L.A. for a photo shoot on February 26. I had decided to leave Wicked Pictures after seventeen years and take Keiran Lee up on his offer to make a home at Digital Playground.

Literally two hours before our appointment, when I was finally set to meet him in person, he called to cancel. “I can’t meet you today,” he said.

“You’re kidding,” I said. What was wrong with lawyers? Can’t a girl just take on the most powerful man in the world with a decent lawyer at her side?

“I need you to meet an associate of mine,” he said. “I think he would be a better fit for your case. Where’s your shoot at?”

I told him and he paused. “Oh, a good place to meet is the bar at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills,” he said. “The lounge in the lobby. He likes it there.”

“Okay,” I said, not trying to hide that I was pissed I was being dumped onto some guy who was probably a junior attorney. “What’s this guy’s name?”

“Michael,” he said. “Michael Avenatti.”

You know when you look good? I looked good. I went straight from the photo shoot to the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills. I brought my assistant Kayla with me, since I wasn’t sure there wasn’t something fishy going on. Kayla is beautiful, with brown hair and a small streak of lovable crazy. I was angry when I walked in, because I had gone through all these lawyers, and every person I told was another potential leak.

We entered the lobby lounge and stood at the edge. The hotel had just opened the summer before and was done up in a 1920s art deco style, with lots of sleek Gatsby touches like a crystal waterfall chandelier and an ornate fireplace. A man in a suit was standing at the fireplace, his back to us as he sipped a martini.

“That’s probably him,” I said.

He turned his head toward us in a classic leading man move, but he did a double take. Neither of us expected the other to look so good. We had, as they say, a moment.

“Oh, my God, he’s so fucking hot,” Kayla said.

“Be cool,” I said. Let’s just say it: he is gorgeous. He walked right over to us with his hand out, super charming.

“You must be—”

“Stormy,” I said, extending my hand.

He took it, looking right at me with these ridiculous blue eyes. “Michael Avenatti,” he said.

I jostled Kayla to stop her from staring. “This is my assistant.”

He gestured to a small table with three chairs, and we sat. He ordered another martini, and he did it so suavely that it felt wrong not to get a cocktail, so I went with a vodka cranberry. I would need something to distract me if I had to go through the whole saga and watch my assistant try to eye-fuck this lawyer.