Meanwhile, as they waited, I was catching all sorts of shit and couldn’t fully defend myself. I tried to relieve the pressure by batting at some of the trolls who came at me on Twitter. When someone tweeted asking if I was worried I was going to go to hell from taking so many dicks, I had some fun. “Does heaven have a maximum dick-taking number? More importantly, does hell have a minimum? Just want to make sure my quota is on track.”
“Pretty sure dumb whores go to hell,” some guy named Scott wrote.
“Glad I’m a smart one,” I answered.
A woman’s response blew my mind. “A very smart one,” a girl named Stephanie wrote. “I wish every woman had the confidence you do and the ability to not take personally people’s lame insults. Whether you’re an adult film star or a teacher or whatever, if you’re a woman, you’ll be called a whore one day. Let’s not let that lame insult affect us.”
I blinked a few times, rereading the tweet. Every word she said was true. More women started chiming in, sharing not just “you go girl” cheesy sentiments, but thoughtful comments about what happens when women speak truth to power. I’m not comparing it to a #MeToo thing, because nothing about it smacked of victimhood. It was just smart women from all walks of life and classes discussing facts.
I think CBS would have preferred that I check into a nunnery under an assumed name until they were ready to finally air the damn thing. Every few days, Anderson Cooper would personally call me to say, “It’s coming together.” I think he was genuine, but I can also see someone suggesting that a call from him would make me feel better. When they said it was going to come out March 18, the day after my birthday, I was relieved.
Cohen then stated he would seek twenty million dollars from me, which he said was his tally of how many times I had talked. One million dollars for each “breach.” 60 Minutes pushed it one last time, to March 25. But now they wanted to do additional shooting of me at home for B-roll, the fluff day-in-the-life footage to keep viewers interested during boring narration.
I didn’t want to do it and wasn’t going to be in Texas anyway. I compromised, letting them film me at my dads’ house in L.A. They filmed me with Keith’s horses, even though they’re not the right breeds to do what I do. It didn’t look anything like Texas.
I couldn’t believe they wanted this stuff. Then they shot what felt like two hours of me watering flowers.
Why were we wasting even a second with fluff when there was so much information to cram in? They shot a three-hour interview of me and Anderson—even if they gave me the whole episode without commercials, the show is literally called 60 Minutes!
I watched the show live as it aired March 25. Anderson sat on a chair in front of a huge photo of me. “A week before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s personal attorney paid a porn star named Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged relationship with the Republican candidate for president. Today, that arrangement is well on its way to becoming the most talked-about ‘hush agreement’ in history….”
I only know what he said because I watched it again. The first time I watched it, I was just staring at my photo, horrified by how bad I looked. My makeup was terrible. Here I was, finally getting my chance to talk, and I had to work through my feelings about vanity. That done, my thoughts turned to “I can’t believe they used so little.” Anderson had done such a fantastic job interviewing me, and there was so much focus on what happened in the hotel room in Lake Tahoe, and then in the parking lot in Las Vegas when my daughter and I were threatened. But as edited, the reasons behind my decisions, all the things that I have detailed for you here, seemed unclear. Still, more than twenty-one million people watched it, a bump of over 100 percent from the previous week’s show. In fact, it was the most-watched episode since the November 2008 postelection interview with Barack and Michelle Obama. I bet Trump really hated to hear that.
I had some close friends, including Denver Nicks, over to watch the show with me as it aired, and Glen waited to go ballistic until it was over. At first I didn’t understand and thought it was because it was so public.
“A man fucking threatened you and our daughter, Stormy,” he said. “My daughter. And it never occurred to you to tell me. It never once crossed your mind that as a mother you should tell me someone threatened you.”
“I forgot!”
“You forgot?” he said. “Stop lying to me.”
“I have had so much shit going on, Glen,” I said. “Yes, I forgot. He didn’t kill me. I am sorry that I didn’t tell you. I am so sorry any of this is happening.”
“I asked you if there was anything else I should know and you lied to me.”
“But you were not well,” I said. “I was afraid to tell you anything.”
He stormed out. My phone kept chiming, so I picked it up. I scrolled through my direct messages, and death threats were coming in. I got about a hundred. “Your child should be euthanized,” read one, “because she would be better off than with you.” So many threats involved people wanting to take my daughter away from me, one way or another.
Everyone left but Denver, and I asked him to do me a favor. “I need you to film me giving a statement,” I said, asking him to get out his iPhone. I think he assumed he was taping me for some sort of clarification or response that I would then post on social media. No, this was personal.
“If something happens to me,” I began, directly addressing my seven-year-old daughter, “I love you.” I shared my hopes for her and my pride in the smart, funny, sweet girl I have had the privilege to raise. I told Glen I love him, and then I started reeling off a last will and testament, never so direct about anything in my life. I said who to contact about my life insurance policy, cautioning that the person should not immediately give the money to Glen. “He will be in a bad spot,” I said. I talked about the care of my horses, stating that one of the horses should be sold and the money should be put into an account for my daughter. I cared about the living. Stuff didn’t matter. I had the clear-eyed vision of a person about to die.
Throughout, Denver kept looking up, fully feeling the solemnity of the moment. When it was over, I nodded at him to turn off his camera, and he sat on the couch next to me with a heavy exhale. “What do you want me to do with this?” he asked.
“Put it on a thumb drive and don’t say a word about where it’s at until I’m killed,” I said. I was that certain. I told him who to give it to, and we haven’t discussed it since. I had lived alone with the fear of being murdered to ensure my silence for so long that now that the world was discussing the death threats against me, I felt like I finally had some company in my concern. Dark humor is one of my coping mechanisms, and I often joke about it now. Sometime after we taped that final statement, I made the mistake of telling Denver that I had joined a celebrity deadpool, a death-watch list where you bet on the likelihood of a famous person dying that year. “I bet on myself,” I told him.
“Stop it,” he said.
“What?” I said. “It’s funny.”
“It’s not funny, Stormy,” he said. “This is a real thing.”
“If it’s not funny, it will be real,” I said. “I need it to be funny or else my daughter isn’t going to grow up with a mother. So let’s go with funny. Funny works.”
But I also needed to face the fact that I needed bodyguards. I am the Goldilocks of security teams. The first two guys I had just didn’t work out. That very first night with them, Kayla and I were working and managed to give them the slip. It was childish to fuck with the babysitters, but it was also a test that I think they should have passed. The second pair was great, but I needed someone long-term. And the third was just right.