Stormy Daniels

Name at birth: Stephanie Gregory

Stormy Daniels is the adult film star who in 2016 accepted a $130,000 payment not to talk about her alleged affair with future president Donald Trump. That payment led to Trump's indictment by a grand jury in 2023. She was born Stephanie Gregory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and graduated from Scotlandville Magnet High School there in 1997. She took up stripping at a local club, then moved on to starring in pornographic films, taking the stage name of Stormy Daniels. (She later took the legal name of Stephanie Gregory Clifford.) She rose quickly in the industry, being named best new starlet at the Adult Video News Awards of 2003. Over the next decade she made a name for herself as actor, writer and take-charge director in more than 100 adult films like One Night in Vegas (2004) Bound (2008) and Sex Door Neighbors (2013). She also had a few minor roles in mainstream films including The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005, with Steve Carell) and Knocked Up (2007, with Seth Rogen). Stormy Daniels was thrust into the news in 2018, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, an attorney for President Donald Trump, had paid her $130,000 in 2016 in exchange for her agreement not to discuss an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. Daniels claimed that she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July of 2006, and began a sexual affair with him the same weekend. In 2018, Trump denied the affair and denied knowledge of the payment by Cohen. The allegations grew into a major political scandal, with Daniels suing to be released from the restrictions of the hush-money agreement. (Cohen in 2018 struck a plea deal with special prosecutor Robert Mueller in which he admitted making the payments and said he did it to help Trump's campaign.) Daniels turned her sudden notoriety into a money-making national performance tour, performing at strip clubs around the United States to fans and members of "Team Stormy." She published a memoir, Full Disclosure, in 2018, which included a detailed account of her encounters with Trump.