If I’m a gold digger, I’m fucking stupid as shit.
That said, I knew how much a money windfall would change the lives of my friends and family. I felt awful. They had the opportunity to make a lot of money, but I decided they couldn’t because of my morals. I know how it looked: What a pretentious bitch. Me on my pornographic high horse over here.
Now, I just needed a decent lawyer to help me tell my story and really advocate for me. I spoke with one who seemed to take the call just for the curiosity factor. He was a very high-powered lawyer, but I just wasn’t getting the sense that he understood what a big deal this was. He dragged it out for a couple of weeks and was moving so slow, I knew he didn’t share my passion, so I ended it. I was anxious that this guy now knew my story and my strategy for confronting Cohen and Trump. After my experience with Davidson, I didn’t exactly trust lawyers.
The next guy was 100 percent on my side and Mr. Gung Ho. “Oh, yeah,” he said, incredulous about what hapless lawyers Davidson and Cohen were. “You totally have a case here.”
“Great, let’s do this,” I said. He was based in L.A., another high-powered lawyer, and we talked on the phone a few more times. It seemed to be going well, so I felt safe sending him a copy of the NDA I signed. We arranged to meet at his office when I was in L.A. for a photo shoot on February 26. I had decided to leave Wicked Pictures after seventeen years and take Keiran Lee up on his offer to make a home at Digital Playground.
Literally two hours before our appointment, when I was finally set to meet him in person, he called to cancel. “I can’t meet you today,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” I said. What was wrong with lawyers? Can’t a girl just take on the most powerful man in the world with a decent lawyer at her side?
“I need you to meet an associate of mine,” he said. “I think he would be a better fit for your case. Where’s your shoot at?”
I told him and he paused. “Oh, a good place to meet is the bar at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills,” he said. “The lounge in the lobby. He likes it there.”
“Okay,” I said, not trying to hide that I was pissed I was being dumped onto some guy who was probably a junior attorney. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Michael,” he said. “Michael Avenatti.”
ELEVEN
You know when you look good? I looked good. I went straight from the photo shoot to the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills. I brought my assistant Kayla with me, since I wasn’t sure there wasn’t something fishy going on. Kayla is beautiful, with brown hair and a small streak of lovable crazy. I was angry when I walked in, because I had gone through all these lawyers, and every person I told was another potential leak.
We entered the lobby lounge and stood at the edge. The hotel had just opened the summer before and was done up in a 1920s art deco style, with lots of sleek Gatsby touches like a crystal waterfall chandelier and an ornate fireplace. A man in a suit was standing at the fireplace, his back to us as he sipped a martini.
“That’s probably him,” I said.
He turned his head toward us in a classic leading man move, but he did a double take. Neither of us expected the other to look so good. We had, as they say, a moment.
“Oh, my God, he’s so fucking hot,” Kayla said.
“Be cool,” I said. Let’s just say it: he is gorgeous. He walked right over to us with his hand out, super charming.
“You must be—”
“Stormy,” I said, extending my hand.
He took it, looking right at me with these ridiculous blue eyes. “Michael Avenatti,” he said.
I jostled Kayla to stop her from staring. “This is my assistant.”
He gestured to a small table with three chairs, and we sat. He ordered another martini, and he did it so suavely that it felt wrong not to get a cocktail, so I went with a vodka cranberry. I would need something to distract me if I had to go through the whole saga and watch my assistant try to eye-fuck this lawyer.
“So,” he said, “tell me what happened.”
I was still mad about being stood up by the other lawyer and saddled with this pretty boy. I barreled through it, telling the whole story brashly because this was going to be one more guy who just wanted to hear about the freak show but wouldn’t actually do anything to help me. I could tell this Avenatti was sizing me up and down, trying to figure out if I was lying or not.
I’m colorful when I speak, and I don’t hold a lot back. I didn’t talk to Avenatti any differently from how I talk to Kayla, or Keith, or anybody else I know.
I saw a crack in his façade as he smiled. Michael now says that’s the moment he fell in love with me as a client. The moment he realized I owned who I was and wasn’t afraid to acknowledge it.
I looked Michael up on Wikipedia that night. “He’s forty-seven,” I told Kayla. “Race car driver on the side.” I saved the photo of him for the caller ID on my phone. I reeled off a bunch of his cases, and Kayla just looked at me like I was speaking dolphin.
“Single?” she asked.
“Separated.”
“Hmmph,” said Kayla.
“I’m not taking on the president to get you laid,” I said.
“Yeah, but if it was an added benefit…” she said.
Since I got to choose where we were going, I thought I’d haze him a little. I told Mr. Waldorf Astoria boy to meet me at an out-of-the-way dive bar I know on Sunset and Hollywood. Kayla, of course, wanted to come along, still desperate to fuck him.
Kayla and I ordered the fish tacos, and Michael said he wasn’t hungry. Getting down to his fighting weight, I guess. And there, in the dive bar, we worked out our strategy.
TWELVE
Back home in Texas, I assigned Michael a specific ringtone so I would know to slip into another room to talk if I was with people, especially my daughter. It was the Bat Signal, and Batgirl here was busy. Michael had called Andy Court, the 60 Minutes producer he had worked with on a story about his lawsuit against medical giant Kimberly-Clark Corporation and its tech firm spin-off Halyard Health. Michael proved they were misleading buyers about the safety of surgical gowns sold during the Ebola crisis. Michael was really proud of winning the case, and if Michael is proud of something, you’re gonna hear about it. The gowns were more porous than the company told people, consistently failing industry standards. After the piece aired, an L.A. jury found Kimberly-Clark and Halyard Health liable for fraud and awarded $454 million in damages.
So Michael vouching for my credibility had some weight at 60 Minutes, but hey, I’m still a porn star. Producer Andy Court and associate producer Evie Salomon had a lot of initial questions they wanted Michael to relay to me. Then, when they brought the potential story to executive producer Jeff Fager, he wanted additional fact-checking before they committed to even investigating the story.
I was impressed that they took it so seriously. I wasn’t offended, mostly because I found it amusing that Michael seemed ever so slightly put off that his assurance, “Guys, she’s cool,” wasn’t enough to get me through the door. So I pulled out my feature dancing calendar for March to see where I could squeeze in 60 Minutes coming to my house in Texas. I wanted Glen there, at least in the beginning of the meeting, because it was important to me that he feel included after I hid so much from him. I was leaving town for a two-night dance booking in Houston on March 2, so I offered March 1.