Stormy Daniels and the Trump hush-money case

A look at the life of the porn star at the center of a presidential scandal

Stormy Daniels smiling for a photo
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Porn star Stormy Daniels says she first had sex with former President Donald Trump in 2006, after the pair met at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. At the time, 60-year-old Trump was married to his current wife, Melania; Daniels was 27. The pair saw one another at least twice more in 2007, but allegedly never slept together again.

Fast forward to 2016, when Trump won the Republican nomination for president. It was then that Michael Cohen, Trump's "fixer," called Daniels and offered to pay her $130,000 in exchange for her silence regarding the alleged affair, which Trump has continued to deny to this day. Daniels claims she took the money to protect herself and her family, and says that she felt pressured into signing a stringent non-disclosure agreement. Now, some eight years later, Manhattan prosecutors appear to be nearing an indictment in an investigation into whether Trump falsified business records when reimbursing Cohen for handling the payment to Daniels.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.