Stormy Daniels has spoken out about her alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump, revealing that she had a “90-second blank” where she says “I don’t know what happened”.
Ms Daniels toldVogue in an interview released on Tuesday that, during the 2006 encounter in a hotel room in Nevada, she came out of the bathroom to be greeted by Mr Trump standing in the doorway in his underwear.
The adult film star said that there was then a 90-second period that she has no memory of before she says she found herself on the bed.
“So at one point after we’d been chatting for a couple hours, I got up to use the bathroom,” she said.
“And then I come out, and – it’s like, there’s 90 seconds that don’t exist. I don’t know what happened.
“I’m standing there, in the doorway, and all of a sudden he’s there in his underwear, doing the world’s worst Burt Reynolds impression, and – that’s the thing I don’t understand, I don’t understand how I got from the doorway to being underneath him in the bed.”
Specifically, Ms Daniels claimed she had no memory of taking off her gold shoes.
“That’s what gets me. Because they were these gold shoes, with buckles – kind of a pain in the ass to put on and take off, you know? And I know I took them off because I had to put them back on again. And I remember that, putting them on,” she said.
“And it being a thing, because I wanted to leave. Afterwards. I know I didn’t say no.
“But I also know I didn’t say yes. I wasn’t threatened... I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Ms Daniels has previously said the sexual encounter was consensual but told Vogue that she remembers thinking that Mr Trump’s bodyguard was just outside the door – and feared that if she hit Mr Trump, the bodyguard could hurt her.
“I remember him saying, ‘Do you want to go back to the trailer park?’” she said.
“I never said I lived in a trailer park; I didn’t. I said we were poor…”
The Independent has reached out to Mr Trump’s attorney for comment.
Ms Daniels first spoke out in 2018 about the alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Mr Trump at a hotel room in Nevada.
During the 2016 presidential election, Mr Trump had allegedly paid Ms Daniels $130,000 through his “fixer” Michael Cohen to silence her over the alleged affair.
On Tuesday, the former president was arrested in Manhattan and arraigned on 34 criminal charges surrounding the hush money payment to the adult film star.
Ms Daniels told Vogue that she has been facing death threats ever since Mr Trump was indicted on criminal charges last week.
But, despite the backlash, she hopes that Mr Trump will “get what’s coming”.
“For my own sake, I’d like vindication, I’d like him to get what’s coming for once,” she said.
“But that’s about me, and there’s other stuff that’s more, like, about the country,” she added, referring to the other investigations circling the former president.
Ms Daniels said that she understands how some Americans were drawn to him early on but struggles to see how people can’t “see who he is now”.
“I do get it, in some ways – his appeal, at least early on,” she said.
“Coming out rough-around-the-edges, saying things other politicians just won’t say – I get how people could look at him and feel like, that guy is closer to me and my life and how I think than other people who run for office. I get that desire people have, for a person who ‘gets’ them.
“But what I can’t understand is how those people have stuck with him, after everything they ought to be able to see who he is now.”
Ms Daniels has found herself at the centre of Mr Trump’s legal challenges as he has become the first current or former president to ever be indicted on criminal charges.
In a historic day for America, the one-term president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal illegal activity connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The “catch and kill” campaign allegedly involved Mr Trump and his then-attorney Michael Cohen making hush money payments during the 2016 run to suppress negative information about him by silencing individuals over alleged affairs he had with women .
Three specific alleged affairs and hush money payments were mentioned in the charging documents – the $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels, a $150,000 to former playboy model Karen McDougal and a $30,000 payment to a doorman at Trump Tower who claimed he had information that Mr Trump had fathered a child with a woman while married to Melania Trump.
Mr Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” the charging documents read.
Each of the 34 criminal charges relates to an individual entry in the Trump Organization’s business records. Mr Trump surrendered to Manhattan authorities on Tuesday afternoon and was officially arrested on criminal charges.
He then appeared in court for his arraignment before Judge Juan Merchan – the same judge who sentenced the Trump Organization and its CFO last year.
Cutting a glum figure, he defiantly pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
After flying back to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the former president launched into a speech railing against the criminal charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge – in a move that could risk him being placed under a gag order.
Despite much speculation, Judge Merchan did not issue a gag order on Tuesday but did warn Mr Trump not to incite violence towards people involved in the case.
