Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims she once had an extramarital fling with Donald Trump years before his presidential bid, is getting a divorce.
Her lawyer announced the news on Monday, the day after she was to have performed at metro Atlanta strip club The Pink Pony. The performances were abruptly canceled due to a “family issue.”
Daniels, known officially as Stephanie Clifford, will reschedule a trip to Atlanta, attorney Michael Avenatti said. Although he asked for privacy on her behalf in a Monday morning social media post, Daniels posted Monday evening, “I don't need or want privacy. I want truth. And it will come out. I'm not afraid.”
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Trump has denied he had an affair with Daniels. She is now suing the president and his fixer, Michael Cohen, for defamation. Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep quiet about the alleged affair. She is asking a judge to rule that hush agreement is invalid.
On Friday, The New York Times reported Cohen secretly recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a separate woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump. Trump has denied he had an affair with her. The FBI seized Cohen’s recording this year when it raided his office, The Times reported. Avenatti said Daniels’ cancellation at the Pink Pony is unrelated to the news about the recording.
Daniels was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, this month and charged with three misdemeanors. Local police accused her of pressing customers’ faces into her chest during her performance at a local strip club, fondling their breasts and grabbing the buttocks of one the officers. Police ultimately dropped the charges against her. Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs issued a statement on Twitter last week, calling Daniels’ arrest a mistake and saying the arresting officers’ actions would be reviewed.
Dennis Williams, the Pink Pony’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he learned from Daniels’ representatives late Friday that she had cancelled all of her public appearances for the next two months. Avenatti said it is “completely false” that Daniels is canceling her appearances for the next two months. Further, Williams called the short notice of her cancellation at his club Friday “extremely unprofessional.”
“On behalf of myself, the staff and the entertainers at the Pink Pony, we are just greatly disappointed and hurt by this news,” Williams said, adding the club had spent money promoting the event and must now refund some sales. “It will be business as usual Sunday night without Stormy Daniels appearing.”
One of Daniels’ booking agents, Danny Capozzi, said he was about to board a flight Friday and could not immediately comment about the cancellation at the Pink Pony.
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