In a new interview, Stormy Daniels says she had sex with Donald Trump in 2006.
In a highly anticipated interview Sunday night, Stormy Daniels said she stayed quiet about her alleged affair with Donald Trump because she feared for her safety.
The 39-year-old adult movie star told Anderson Cooper on CBS' 60 Minutes she is finally speaking out after months of speculation about the alleged tryst because she wants to defend herself.
"I'm not okay with being made out to be a liar, or people thinking that I did this for money," she said.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told 60 Minutes she had sex with Donald Trump after they met at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.
She said he invited her to dinner and they met in a hotel suite, where he started "just talking about himself" while showing her his photo on a magazine. She teased him and spanked him with a copy of the magazine, she said.
"From that moment on, he was a completely different person," she said.
She said she was not attracted to him but they had consensual, unprotected sex. She said it is the only time they slept together. At the time, his wife Melania had just given birth to their son, Barron.
Trump and his lawyers have denied the affair.
In 2011, Daniels said she agreed to tell the story of the alleged affair to In Touch Weekly magazine for $15,000. The story never went to print because Trump's attorneys threatened to sue the magazine, according to 60 Minutes.
Just a few weeks later, Daniels said she was in a Las Vegas parking lot when an unidentified person approached her.
"I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter," she said. "Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, getting all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’"
She continued, "And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That’s a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.' And then he was gone."
Daniels said she did not file a police report about the alleged incident. She said she did not know who the man was, but believes she would recognize him if she ever saw him again.
Years later, in the days before the 2016 election, she said she agreed to a payout of $130,000 from Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, because she was still concerned about her daughter's safety.
Fear led her to agree to the amount, she said.
“The fact that I didn't even negotiate, I just quickly said 'yes' to this very, you know, strict contract, and what most people will agree with me [was an] extremely low number. It's all the proof I need," she said.
Cohen has previously admitted to paying Daniels.
"In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford," Cohen said in a statement in February. "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly. The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
Referring to the alleged affair between President Trump and Daniels, Cohen added in the statement: "Just because something isn't true, doesn't mean that it can't cause you harm or damage. I will always protect Mr. Trump."
Cohen’s attorney, Brent Blakely, sent Daniels a cease and desist letter late Sunday demanding she refrain from making “false and defamatory statements” about Cohen in the future.
Blakely also called on Daniels to apologize for insinuating that Cohen was behind the threat she described to 60 Minutes that she said took place in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011.
The letter further demands that Daniels and her lawyer "retract and apologize to Mr. Cohen through the national media for your defamatory statements on 60 Minutes, and make clear that you have no facts or evidence whatsoever to support your allegations that my client had anything whatsoever to do with this alleged thug.”
The White House did not immediately comment on the Sunday interview.
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