Where Is Stormy Daniels Now? All About the Adult Movie Star's Life After She Sued Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels' alleged affair with Donald Trump — and the hush money payment she received to keep quiet — came to light during his presidency in 2018

Stormy Daniels' life was forever changed when her alleged affair with Donald Trump went public in 2018, eventually ending in Trump becoming the first sitting president to be indicted on criminal charges.

Daniels claimed she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and that he paid her to keep quiet about the encounter ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The pair went to court in dueling lawsuits over the course of several years during Trump's presidency. Trump has consistently denied any sexual involvement with Daniels.

Born Stephanie Clifford, Daniels is the subject of the 2024 Peacock documentary Stormy, which began streaming on March 18. The film follows her professional and personal life during the media and political firestorm from 2016 to today and the aftermath of her war of words and attorneys with Trump.

"I wasn't trying to be a champion for #MeToo or for any other movement," Daniels, who's a registered Republican, said in Stormy. "Originally I just did this for purely f------ selfish reasons. I wanted to stand up for myself and save my own ass, not anyone else's."

In Stormy, Daniels wrestles with her indeliberately becoming a symbol of resistance against Trump's administration as well as compromises she had to make in her own life, including over custody of her young daughter, to protect her and her family's safety while standing up for her principles publicly.

Related: Stormy Daniels Was 'Completely Sure' She'd Be Murdered After Taking on Trump: 'If Something Happens to Me...'

"I'm not that special," she said in the documentary. "I feel like a hypocrite. I feel like I better do something worthy of what they're giving me, and I don't know what that is."

From her career as an adult film star and director to her legal battles with Donald Trump, here's everything to know about Stormy Daniels and where she is now.

Who is Stormy Daniels?

Daniels, born Stephanie Clifford, is an adult film star, actress and TV personality. Daniels achieved mainstream notoriety in 2018 when it was revealed that she detailed several alleged sexual encounters with then-President Trump, but she was already famous before the news broke.

Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Daniels' parents divorced when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her mother. In Stormy, Daniels claimed that her mother was frequently drinking and partying, sometimes leaving her alone for extended periods of time.

"She was always looking for situations with men," Daniels said. "I think that's one of the bad things that I picked up from her. The only thing I am addicted to or always looking for is being loved by someone who loves me back."

Daniels alleged in Stormy that when she was 9 years old, a neighbor sexually abused her and several other girls in her school. She said that she and the girls told their school guidance counselor, who notified the police. When authorities interviewed Daniels' mother, Daniels alleged that her mother encouraged her to lie to avoid being removed from her mother's care. The neighbor died several years prior to Stormy filming. "I was sad," she said in the documentary. "Because I wanted to kill him."

Daniels, who's had a lifelong interest in equestrianism, became a dancer as a teen after a friend introduced her to the business as a means to afford more horses. She became an adult film star after going to a shoot with a friend and quickly rose up the ranks in the business. Working with Wicked Pictures, she became a well-known star in the adult film circuit, as well as a successful director in the industry.

In addition to her adult film work, Daniels has made several mainstream media appearances, including in Judd Apatow's movies Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Maroon 5's music video for "Wake Up Call."

What happened between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump?

In a shelved interview with In Touch magazine from May 2011 (which the outlet later published in 2018), Daniels claimed that after meeting Trump at the American Century Championship in July 2006 at Edgewood Tahoe golf course in Nevada, Trump invited her to dinner in his hotel room. In Stormy, she recalled not wanting to meet up with Trump at the time, but agreed to at the urging of her publicist, who said it would at minimum give her a funny story to tell. She claimed they had "textbook generic sex" that night, less than four months after Trump's wife Melania gave birth to Barron Trump.

In Stormy, Daniels further detailed her and Trump's sexual encounter, saying that she wasn't under the impression when she first agreed to meet with him that anything amorous would occur. She went to the bathroom, she said, and he cornered her when she came out.

"I felt that I had been misled and tricked. I thought we had this mutual respect," she explained. "I've maintained it wasn't rape in any fashion, but I didn't say no because I was 9 years old again. The last thing I remember thinking, 'I could totally take him if I wanted to scream or fight, but I'm not supposed to act like that.' "

Daniels said in Stormy that after their first encounter, Trump called her frequently and promised to cast her on The Celebrity Apprentice. She said that they met up "five or six" more times in subsequent months, but that they didn't have sex again. When Trump eventually told her that NBC wouldn't allow her to appear on Celebrity Apprentice, she stopped taking his calls.

She also claimed in Stormy that a stranger threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot when she was with her daughter a few weeks after conducting the interview with In Touch. She said as a result, she felt pressured into signing a non-disclosure agreement to protect her family's safety. From that point on, whenever the subject of her alleged affair with Trump came up publicly, she denied it.

That changed when Trump was running for president in 2016. The In Touch interview surfaced after The Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, an attorney for Trump, arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels one month before the 2016 presidential election so she'd keep quiet about the alleged sexual encounter. Cohen released a statement alleging to be on Daniels' behalf denying any affair or hush money payments occurred — and Daniels later hinted on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that she never actually issued the denial herself (though she didn't say so outright, Kimmel recalled in Stormy, possibly out of fear of violating her non-disclosure agreement). Associates of Daniels, including adult film star Alana Evans, corroborated her account.

Bound by her NDA, Daniels wasn't allowed to comment on her and Trump's alleged sexual encounters publicly. However, in Stormy, Daniels said that when she learned that Cohen was shopping for a book deal in which he would detail the alleged affair, she got angry.

"Cohen was using me and exploiting me to make money, and I'd just f------ had it," she said. She hired attorney Michael Avenatti to sue Trump to invalidate the NDA and for defamation for saying her detailing their affair was a "con job." Trump and his own legal team countersued Daniels for $20 million. Daniels' defamation suit against the then-president was dismissed in October 2018, and Daniels was ordered to pay Trump $293,000 for legal fees in the case.

Trump later admitted to reimbursing Cohen for the payment to Daniels, but denied it was hush money or related to his presidential campaign.

Amid the legal drama, Daniels went on tour, in part to protect her family's safety from death threats she received, as she didn't want to be home or to endanger her daughter. She allegedly saw her income skyrocket after the Trump allegations became public, claiming in Stormy that she made $20,000 in just three days — but specified that her dancing gigs were already booked and she was just making more money doing the work she did already.

"I'm the sole breadwinner of my family," she explained. "If you drive an ice cream truck for two years and you don't drive it the week of a heat wave, you're an idiot."

During this time, she also appeared on talk shows like The View and even made a cameo on Saturday Night Live.

Daniels spoke openly for the first time about the affair in March 2018 on 60 Minutes, a move she says in Stormy she made specifically because her appearance on the news magazine was unpaid, and she didn't want to be accused of doing the interview for money. She said the backlash after the 60 Minutes interview was swift and brutal, and she feared for her life at times. "I was completely sure that I was gonna die," she said in Stormy, explaining that she recorded a will during the tumult in case she was killed.

In April 2023, Trump was indicted on criminal charges of falsifying business records in relation to his payment to Daniels, which was reportedly listed in his business records as legal expenses.

What happened to Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti?

Daniels hired Avenatti after accepting the hush payment deal from Cohen that prohibited her from speaking about her and Trump's alleged sexual encounter in public. In Stormy, the adult film actress shared that before meeting Avenatti, she brought her case to multiple attorneys, though none wanted to get involved.

"Some were just immediately, like, 'I'm sorry — too hot for us,' or, 'We need a minimum $100,000 retainer,' " she said in the documentary. "When I first met [Michael], I thought he was so generous by not taking more than $100 from me. He was the only person even willing to not only help me, and champion for me, but believed me."

However, Daniels also alleged that Avenatti courted media attention and that she was at least somewhat wary of him, even before their client-lawyer relationship went south.

"Avenatti got me the book deal," she said in Stormy. "And I still think that he may be the devil, so I have to be careful that he doesn't lose sight of what I need him to do."

Her doubts ended up being well-founded: In February 2022, Avenatti was found guilty of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for forging Daniels' signature and stealing $300,000 of her $800,000 advance from her book Full Disclosure. At the time of the verdict, she said, "A win is always great, and I'm aware I won't ever get my money back and worried that if it had gone the other way it would set a very scary precedent for people in the adult film industry." Avenatti was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding Daniels.

"Michael Avenatti, he betrayed me in every way," she fumed in Stormy. "When it comes to somebody you trusted and you thought was your friend, it's really heartbreaking and upsetting, which became the pattern with people who were close to me."

Daniels wasn't the only client Avenatti was accused of defrauding. In December 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing millions of dollars from his clients and blocking the IRS from collecting $3 million in taxes.

What happened to Stormy Daniels' husband, Glendon Crain?

Daniels married adult film star Glendon Crain in 2015, but they split in 2018 amid the drama surrounding the Trump affair allegations, with Crain alleging that she wasn't completely forthcoming about what happened with Trump before they met.

"The sexual part I didn't know about, but the [hush] money came to my bank account," Crain said in Stormy.

"Glen started to kind of unravel, and we would just fight, and he would scream at me. It went downhill really quickly, which was surprising because we had a really good relationship and marriage, like it worked really well," Daniels said in Stormy. Crain alleged that "infidelity increased" during the Trump scandal and accused Daniels of becoming romantic with Denver Nicks, a filmmaker who shot some of the footage used in Stormy.

The breakup was acrimonious at times regarding the custody of their then-7-year-old daughter, as Crain didn't want her going on strip club tours with Daniels, but they eventually worked out an amicable arrangement.

"I felt horrible, but I can't even imagine how Glen felt. It just was not good for him, but mostly I broke his heart, and that is the one thing in this whole thing that I regret," Daniels recalled in Stormy. Her voice breaking, she added, "He really didn't deserve this. And he's a really good dad."

Crain said he "applauds" Daniels for achieving a degree of normalcy in their lives. "It's not a perfect situation," he said, "but we're trying to make the best of it."

Daniels married fellow adult film star Barrett Blade, a longtime friend, in December 2022.

She announced the news on Instagram, captioning a selfie of her and Blade in onesies, "When you marry your best friend, life is always going to be good….even on the days it’s hard. Thank you @barrettblade777 for giving me my dream home, life and family. (The diamonds and amazing sex are awesome, too! 💋😜)."

"We had never dated, never even kissed offscreen," she said in Stormy. "We rekindled all of that, moved and got horses, and everything was going great."

Where is Stormy Daniels now?

In 2022, Daniels appeared in The Surreal Life revival, where she blew costars minds with secret tricks of the porn trade. She's also the host of For the Love of DILFs and is back to work as a director of both adult and mainstream films. In October 2023, she announced on Instagram that she was filming a "mainstream thriller" called Decoy.

When she's not busy working, Daniels, Blade and her daughter live with their horses and are trying to have a normal life, but it hasn't always been easy. She said in Stormy that not only is she a frequent target for death threats, but her legal bills are enormous, despite her new attorney, Clark Brewster, representing her for free.

"It's just a never-ending avalanche of court documents, lawsuits and court transcripts," she said in Stormy. "I wanted to die. If I had all these legal bills piled up, I would have never been able to pay them. Clark is the only one who never charged me and kept fighting for me."

Daniels filed several appeals in the defamation case against Trump and lost. She is still drowning in legal fees to the former president and, according to Stormy, fears she may lose her home in the process.

"It started off as, 'You've got to be f------ kidding me, this is ridiculous,' to 'This is terrifying,' to 'This is infuriating' to 'This is just pointless,'" she said. "I have no hope at all anymore."

Explaining that hiding away from her bullies made things worse, Daniels said that she can't count on the courts to protect her, noting that strangers came to her home and shot her horse with rubber bullets to try to get her to come outside.

"The justice system failed me. It absolutely failed me in every single way. It never protected me when I made reports about being threatened or somebody attacking my horse, and that's been one of the hardest things about this," she said.

Despite all of the trauma she's endured, Daniels refuses to back down or be silenced.

"My soul is so tired. I don't know if I'm so much a warrior now as out of f---s, man," she said in Stormy. "I won't give up because I'm telling the truth. And I don't even know if it matters anymore."

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