Stormy Daniels has said that she receives death threats from people who seem as dedicated to their cause as “suicide bombers” in a new interview.
The amount of abuse from Trump supporters has escalated following the former president’s arraignment this week on charges stemming from hush money paid to the porn star.
Ms Daniels spoke to Piers Morgan in an interview broadcast on Thursday on Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV.
“They genuinely feel that they’re doing something right. That they are the patriots,” she told Mr Morgan of the fans of Mr Trump threatening her. “Now they’re doing it like a suicide bomber. They truly, in the depths of their soul, they feel like they are doing the right thing.”
The porn actor said she was used to getting some threats stemming from just doing her job, but that the threat level increased significantly when the news broke in 2018 of the $130,000 payment she received shortly before the 2016 election.
She claims she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2006, a notion the former president has rejected.
Speaking of the threats beginning in 2018, Ms Daniels said, “The first time around it was mostly just ‘liar,’ you know, ‘sk**k,’ ‘wh**e,’ that kind of stuff”.
Comparing then and now, she said that in 2018, one in a hundred messages she received was a death threat – now that number is one in ten.
“They are way more specific and graphic, and just, instead of some babbling person, like, ‘You’re gonna burn in hell,’ that kind of thing, they seem to be more … serious,” she told Mr Morgan.
“They’re not hiding. It used to be if they were going to do something, they would do it from a blocked number, or from a fake Twitter account,” she added. “These people are using their actual phone numbers and their actual emails and their actual Twitter accounts, which then makes it worse because they actually have followers, right?”
Ms Daniels noted that supporters of Mr Trump have possibly increased their attacks because the indictment stemming from the hush money payments “could actually hurt him”. It could land him with a conviction or damage his chances of taking back the White House in 2024.
“They’re a lot more passionate. I guess that’s a good word. Enthusiastic with their threats and they’re not hiding,” she said.
Speaking about the effect the mounting threats have had on her, she told Mr Morgan that “I didn’t even pee by myself for almost two years. I’m pretty independent. I’m pretty tough”.
“I’m a writer and director and I showed horses, and did my own thing, and then suddenly I didn’t get to use the bathroom without two big armed bodyguards watching me pee for two years,” she added. “That’s a lot ... to go from somebody who’s so independent to basically having an armed babysitter at all times.”
On Tuesday, Mr Trump pled not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The office of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement that Mr Trump falsified the records “in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election”.
The charges are connected to hush money payments made to Ms Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal who both alleged to have had affairs with Mr Trump.
The office of the DA added that “during the election, TRUMP and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects”.
“TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws,” the office said.
The National Enquirer is reported to have paid Ms McDougal $150,000 for her story only for them not to run it in a deal orchestrated by then-Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who paid Ms Daniels $130,000 for her silence.
On Tuesday, Mr Bragg said the case was about “34 false statements made to cover up other crimes. These are felony crimes in New York state, no matter who you are. We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct”.
The statement of facts released by the DA on Tuesday notes that Mr Trump announced his 2016 campaign in June of the previous year.
