Never mind that the sketch was done by renowned forensic artist Lois Gibson, whose sketches have helped law enforcement ID 751 criminals and secure more than a thousand convictions. Lois has said she was inspired to study forensic art after she was attacked at age twenty-one by a brutal rapist. He almost killed her, repeatedly strangling her until she passed out, laughing each time. Back then, she was a model and dancer in L.A., and she was afraid to go to the police. Just the kind of person Trump and Cohen would write off. But Lois and I believe in each other, because honest people can spot honest people. And liars.
Two weeks after Trump said I was running a “con job,” Michael Avenatti filed a defamation lawsuit against him. “Mr. Trump knew that his false, disparaging statement would be read by people around the world,” Michael wrote in the lawsuit, “as well as widely reported, and that Ms. Clifford would be subjected to threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage as a result.” Translation from legalese: If you come for us, we’re ready.
People have been coming for poor Michael in more inventive ways. Ever since he’s been on TV, he’s had all these people sending him naked pictures—hundreds of pictures. Of all types of women. He’s anything but stupid, and we both think they’re setups to get him in a room to say he was a john or accuse him of assault. We were talking on the phone while he was in L.A., and I made him screen-shot one for me.
When I saw the picture, I immediately recognized the girl as a porn star from the UK. Despite the fact that the girl had sent him an unsolicited message saying she lives in Woodland Hills, giving him an address and trying to lure him to “come over.”
We both agreed that everywhere you turn in this case, someone is trying to fuck us over.
FOURTEEN
We were getting ready to land when the flight attendant passed me the folded note. He looked at me and nodded, then left before I could open it. In blue ink, he had written the words “Stay Strong.” He had perfect timing, because I had just read the most horrible, untrue thing about myself, the latest in a series, and I needed that lifeline. For some time, I had felt like I was caught in a tornado. I was swirling in this mess, at the mercy of every news alert, think piece, hot take, and court filing. I used to click all the stories about the case, but then I would get all bent out of shape over stuff that wasn’t from a legit source. Which I think describes a lot of us.
So I stopped reading about Stormy Daniels and focused on being Stormy Daniels. Besides, I was busy. People all over the country want to pay me more to do the shows that I have always loved doing. People might criticize that, but why am I not allowed to honor that great tenet of American capitalism: supply and demand? With my schedule, most of the world finds out about developments in my case at least half a day before I do. On April 27, two days after Michael Cohen pleaded the fifth in my lawsuit saying the NDA was null and void, a judge granted him a three-month postponement in my civil case because, as His Honor put it, Cohen will “likely” be indicted in a criminal case. The media jumped on it and talked about it all day, but I didn’t know until I was sitting in my makeshift dressing room, the manager’s office of Fantasies strip club in Baltimore. I was half dressed between shows, my feet up as I finally got around to Michael’s emails of the day. I trust Michael as an advocate for me, and I am no longer on my own.
I needed breaks from engaging in the national conversation about me, so I relied on the small, personal encounters I had meeting people in clubs across the country. I have been writing all of this to you in the mornings on the road, waking up in hotels, or on my tour bus. I write before anyone in the circus wakes up: my two dragons, Brandon and Travis; and Denver, who I am grateful for dropping out of his life in New York to give me the day-to-day normalcy of always having a true friend around. And now there’s Dwayne, my old roadie from years ago. A couple of months ago, something told me to call him. “Hey, do you want to be my tour manager?”
“I just started this really good-paying job at a sound company,” he said. “Let me talk to my wife.” He called me the next day.
“I’m in,” he said, and after a brief pause, added, “Are you gonna pay me?” He told me he felt like he was just supposed to come along. We picked up sweet Chris, my emcee, at my gig at Country Rock Cabaret in St. Louis. He just seemed so capable that, again, I had the voice telling me to bring him along. “You’re coming with me,” I said.
And he joked in a hypnotized voice, “I’m coming with you.” He is one of the most gifted emcees out there. Give him a mic and he will announce your arrival and pump up the crowd like you invented stripping. The guys are all so different, but they’re brothers now.
At my meet-and-greets after shows, Travis and Brandon stand beside me as the person hands either Chris or Dwayne their cell phone to take a picture. They all hear the stories people confide in me. Men and, especially now, women take those minutes to tell me about their lives and how they identify with me. As I’ve said, they tell me they need me to save the world.
It’s a burden to take in all this energy, but I know it’s what I am supposed to be doing. There were so many times that the universe took care of me—times where I should not have done well, shouldn’t have gotten out of a situation, or shouldn’t have risen above because no one helped me. You’ve seen this time and again in these pages: the universe takes my hand and says, “I got you.” And I think it wants its payback.
I decided I would do one more big media thing, but only because it felt like family to me. Saturday Night Live, my favorite show in the world, asked me to take part in the cold open of the May 5 episode. There was talk of it for a few weeks, and then, just a few days beforehand, I got word that it was a go. They wanted to do a huge cold open, an old-fashioned cavalcade of stars, with all these unexpected stars playing the roles of people caught up in the various scandals of the Trump administration.
They wanted me to be the last and biggest surprise, and kept my appearance so top secret that they didn’t tell any of the cast beforehand. I entered 30 Rock through an underground parking entrance and was so busy pinching myself that I almost ran right into Scarlett Johansson as we both boarded the building’s secret elevator. She was there to play Ivanka Trump, and Jimmy Fallon would be Jared Kushner. Upstairs, I was spirited to my dressing room, right next door to Ben Stiller’s. He was perfectly cast as Michael Cohen, calling everyone on his various burner phones. As word got out that I was there, cast members kept stopping by to take selfies with me. I couldn’t believe these people I admired were losing it that I was there. I only had a few minutes with my favorite, Kate McKinnon, because she had to do heavy-duty makeup to play crypt keeper Rudy Giuliani. But my other absolute favorite, Leslie Jones, was able to talk to me for a while. In the hallway, I hugged Ben Stiller, and we got to talking about how much we preferred directing over acting. Um, hello, I thought in the moment, I am talking to Ben Stiller about directing Tropic Thunder and Zoolander.
Alec Baldwin walked in, and I made a funny face at the absurdity of him dressed as Donald Trump. He’d brought his wife, Hilaria, who at any moment would be giving birth to their baby boy. He was just as charming as you want him to be. But the real surprise was Lorne Michaels. He’d left a note with flowers in my dressing room, but he also stopped by. I don’t get starstruck, but I have known this man all my life through watching SNL, the show he created in 1975. All those nights I stayed up late in Baton Rouge, or, later, watching it Sunday morning after taping it because I had a Saturday night show. I tried not to gush or give off the feel of crazy-stalker fan, but I did tell him this was my dream come true. He invited me to sit with him in his special spot in the bleachers once the cold open was finished.