Stormy Daniels - Full Disclosure

“A man fucking threatened you and our daughter, Stormy,” he said. “My daughter. And it never occurred to you to tell me. It never once crossed your mind that as a mother you should tell me someone threatened you.”

“I forgot!”

“You forgot?” he said. “Stop lying to me.”

“I have had so much shit going on, Glen,” I said. “Yes, I forgot. He didn’t kill me. I am sorry that I didn’t tell you. I am so sorry any of this is happening.”

“I asked you if there was anything else I should know and you lied to me.”

“But you were not well,” I said. “I was afraid to tell you anything.”

He stormed out. My phone kept chiming, so I picked it up. I scrolled through my direct messages, and death threats were coming in. I got about a hundred. “Your child should be euthanized,” read one, “because she would be better off than with you.” So many threats involved people wanting to take my daughter away from me, one way or another.

Everyone left but Denver, and I asked him to do me a favor. “I need you to film me giving a statement,” I said, asking him to get out his iPhone. I think he assumed he was taping me for some sort of clarification or response that I would then post on social media. No, this was personal.

“If something happens to me,” I began, directly addressing my seven-year-old daughter, “I love you.” I shared my hopes for her and my pride in the smart, funny, sweet girl I have had the privilege to raise. I told Glen I love him, and then I started reeling off a last will and testament, never so direct about anything in my life. I said who to contact about my life insurance policy, cautioning that the person should not immediately give the money to Glen. “He will be in a bad spot,” I said. I talked about the care of my horses, stating that one of the horses should be sold and the money should be put into an account for my daughter. I cared about the living. Stuff didn’t matter. I had the clear-eyed vision of a person about to die.

Throughout, Denver kept looking up, fully feeling the solemnity of the moment. When it was over, I nodded at him to turn off his camera, and he sat on the couch next to me with a heavy exhale. “What do you want me to do with this?” he asked.

“Put it on a thumb drive and don’t say a word about where it’s at until I’m killed,” I said. I was that certain. I told him who to give it to, and we haven’t discussed it since. I had lived alone with the fear of being murdered to ensure my silence for so long that now that the world was discussing the death threats against me, I felt like I finally had some company in my concern. Dark humor is one of my coping mechanisms, and I often joke about it now. Sometime after we taped that final statement, I made the mistake of telling Denver that I had joined a celebrity deadpool, a death-watch list where you bet on the likelihood of a famous person dying that year. “I bet on myself,” I told him.

“Stop it,” he said.

“What?” I said. “It’s funny.”

“It’s not funny, Stormy,” he said. “This is a real thing.”

“If it’s not funny, it will be real,” I said. “I need it to be funny or else my daughter isn’t going to grow up with a mother. So let’s go with funny. Funny works.”

But I also needed to face the fact that I needed bodyguards. I am the Goldilocks of security teams. The first two guys I had just didn’t work out. That very first night with them, Kayla and I were working and managed to give them the slip. It was childish to fuck with the babysitters, but it was also a test that I think they should have passed. The second pair was great, but I needed someone long-term. And the third was just right.

Brandon and Travis became my dragons. My code name is Daenerys, Mother of Dragons, from Game of Thrones . We were insta-family, and they are a team of equals. Brandon is stoic and analytical. I watch him watching everything in whatever public setting I go into, his eyes scanning the entire scene, taking in any anomaly and assessing if it’s a danger. But he is also incredibly goofy. On long drives he’ll be in the front seat doing the most dead-on but respectful Obama impression you’ve ever heard. Travis is more passionate, like me, always listening to his intuition. I call him my M&M with the hard shell and soft interior.

After the second night I was under their protection, they later told me they went back to their hotel room and sat there quiet for a moment. Travis recalled saying, “Are you going to say it or am I?” They agreed they were going to leave all their other clients and work with me full-time. I had been praying they would but was afraid they would feel obligated.

They knew I was going to New York for Michael Cohen’s April 16 hearing in a federal courthouse about the documents the FBI seized from him. Michael Avenatti wanted me to be at the hearing in case I was needed. If the conversation isn’t with you, it’s just about you, right?

“Who’s going to be with you in New York?” Travis asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“We got you,” said Brandon.

I was half dressed in the back of a speeding car in New York City, trying to zip up my skirt. My flight out of West Palm Beach—where I had had a dance booking—had been delayed, and there went all my plans to prep for Michael Cohen’s April 16 court hearing. The FBI had raided his home, office, and hotel room on April 9 seeking information on, among other things, the $130,000 he paid me. The hearing was about who got to look at the seized documents—Trump’s lawyers, who I would not trust to hold a Red Bull for me while I ran to the bathroom, or, as is more usual, a panel of prosecutors unrelated to the case. Michael and I wanted to be there because I am a firm believer that if someone is talking about me, they can say it to my face.

Now we just had to get there in time. My dragons, Brandon and Travis, hustled me right from the plane to the car. Glen wanted to come to the courthouse to stand by me, but I left him at the airport to wait for my checked bag. It was full of my dance costumes, the things I most care about after my people and horses. Thank God I had thought to roll up my court outfit in my carry-on.

I had lined up a hotel to go to before the hearing, so I could shower and steam-iron my skirt suit. It was lilac, sure to show every wrinkle. Now I didn’t even have time to touch up my makeup. I just had to wear the remnants of the makeup from the night before and run my hands through my hair, limp and tired from the humidity of Florida.

If this wasn’t enough of a shit show, there wasn’t even time for me to go to the bathroom before getting in the car. There’s no other way to say this: I was on my period and I desperately needed to change my tampon.

“Dude,” I said to Travis, “the second we get in, I need to find a bathroom.”

“Can you hold it?”

“It’s not about holding it,” I said.

This big giant of a man grimaced and whispered, “You have to do number two?”

“No,” I said. “I have to do number three.”

“What the—” he said. “Oh. Oh. I got you, girl.”

We got to the federal courthouse on Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan and I could see there was a mob of photographers and press waiting. Travis and Brandon have a routine for getting me safely out of a car when there are a lot of people, but I had never been in something like this. “Wait,” I yelled to Travis before he opened his door. I didn’t want to carry my bag, and I didn’t want to walk in like I was looking to be a feminine hygiene spokesmodel. “Here,” I said, handing him the tampon. “Hold this in your jacket for me.”

“You got it,” he said.