Stormy Daniels: The porn star who could destroy Trump's 2024 election hopes

Any hopes porn star Stormy Daniels might have 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.

At the weekend, former US president Donald Trump predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday over a New York investigation into his alleged concealment of a $130,000 (£105,000) hush-money payment made by his lawyer and fixer to Ms Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.

Michael D Cohen was already sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations in relation to paying off Ms Daniels - real name Stephanie Clifford - and another woman, both of whom claimed to have had affairs with Mr Trump.

Mr Trump has denied having sex with either woman or any knowledge of the hush payment, and has said he has done nothing wrong.

But the prospect of imminent felony charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has raised the possibility that he may become the first US president to be brought before the courts for a criminal offence, with a trial likely to coincide with the hotly contested 2024 election.

It has also thrown Ms Daniels’s account of that fateful night in July 2006 back into the spotlight.

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 porn actress 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 pajamas and slippers.

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 Mr 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.

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.

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!"