Once the show started, each reveal got a cheer, and I almost broke character when I got the biggest wave of surprised applause.
As Trump, Alec dismisses Cohen and tries to sweet-talk me. “Oh, come on, we’ll always have Shark Week,” he said. “I solved North and South Korea, why can’t I solve us?”
“Sorry, Donald, it’s too late for that,” I said. “I know you don’t believe in climate change, but… a storm’s a-coming, baby!”
And then we got to say those magic words together: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
I went and sat with Lorne to watch the host, Donald Glover, and for me, the second show was watching Lorne in action. It was amazing to see somebody of his stature still be so involved in every bit of the process, exactly how I try to be as a director.
When the show was over, we all gathered on the stage to say good night to the audience, just as I had seen over and again. The girl from Baton Rouge who wasn’t going to amount to anything was standing up there just like she’d imagined. When I stepped off the stage, I had a realization: that was the best thing that had ever happened to me besides having a child. The only thing that could ever top it would be having another baby—and that was not happening.
“What do I do now?” I said, back in the car with my bodyguards, Travis and Brandon, on our way to the after-party. “Should I, like, buy a puppy or something?”
Then there are moments where I am back down on earth. This was all so hard on my marriage. For months, Glen became more and more critical of me, saying I was being dramatic about needing security. He got a sense of what it’s like when I went home for Mother’s Day weekend. I gave my dragons the day off, and on a whim, Glen and I went to the May 11 Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at the Dos Equis Pavilion, this huge outdoor amphitheater in Dallas. Bad Company was opening for them and were already playing when we got there slightly late. It was an old-fashioned date night, the kind women’s magazines always tell you to have to save your marriage. We were in the third row, Paul Rodgers was singing “Feel Like Making Love,” and Glen hugged me, just like he did when I fell in love with him watching Snow Patrol sing “Chasing Cars” more than ten years before.
Then Bad Company left the stage. And the lights came on, and people saw me. This girl leaned over. “Hey, can I get a picture with you?” she whispered. “I’m a big fan. Do you mind if I just get a quick selfie with you?”
Glen looked away. I smiled. “Sure,” I said. She did, and that’s all anyone else had to hear. They descended on us. “Can I get a picture?” “Can I get a picture?” People began pulling at me, guys putting their arms over me to get me into the frame of their cameras. Glen started to block people, but they were coming from all sides. Someone ripped my shirt trying to grab me, and Glen was done. We fled to the parking lot and sat in the car. No one chased us, it wasn’t some zombie apocalypse thing, but when I was in that space, people wanted a piece of me.
I was used to it and blamed myself for thinking I could just do something like this without Brandon and Travis. But Glen had never seen anything like it. In the car, he admitted it was downright scary, comparing it to Finding Nemo, when the seagulls are all coming for the crab, saying, “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
I was relieved he saw it up close. “That’s what it’s been like,” I told him, not saying what I wanted to say: “I told you I wasn’t exaggerating.”
Still, I didn’t want the night to be a wash. When we heard Lynyrd Skynyrd start up, we sneaked back in, safe again in the dark. We left halfway through “Free Bird,” walking away as they sang about someone who would rather be alone than be chained.
I was in Raleigh on June 7, in the middle of a two-night run at the Men’s Club. My phone was buzzing with messages that morning, but I chose to ignore it because an equestrian center run by a horse friend of mine had opened early just for me. With no cameras, and nobody watching except my kindred-spirit crazy-wonderful horse folk, I got to ride again. It felt amazing to be that free.
When I get a ton of texts, it usually means I am being talked about in the media. For my sanity, I just sort of peek quick to get the gist. If it’s important, Denver or Michael will tell me. That morning I was getting random Facebook messages of support and apologies for what Trump’s pal and lawyer Rudy Giuliani said about me. I didn’t want to look, but a girlfriend sent me the text of his speech with the subject “Fuck Rudy.” He attacked my integrity during a speech in Tel Aviv the day before. “I’m sorry, I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person and isn’t going to sell her body for sexual exploitation…. I mean, she has no reputation. If you’re going to sell your body for money, you just don’t have a reputation.”
So all day I’ll be a talking point about how we value women in society. Who gets to be believed. I’d rather they talk about the lawsuit we filed the day before against Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson. We have seventeen texts between them, Davidson acting more like Trump’s errand boy than my attorney. Michael Avenatti emailed me the texts in a document.
I put off reading them for a while, knowing it would just start a round of me pacing and cussing. But finally, I made myself do it. On January 17, the day In Touch published my 2011 interview, Cohen texted Davidson, desperate to get me to go on The Sean Hannity Show to discredit the story live on the air. “I have her tentatively scheduled for Hannity tonight,” Cohen wrote in an iMessage. Then there are all these texts back and forth. Meanwhile, my life was falling apart and Glen was screaming at me.
Davidson tells Cohen he couldn’t get me to do it and says he can try for tomorrow. Cohen writes back: “Let’s forget tonight. They [Fox news and the Trump administration] would rather tomorrow so they can promote the heck out of the show.” (His brackets, not mine!)
Two hours later, Cohen messaged Davidson about Trump’s strategy again. “Keith, the wise men all believe the story is dying and don’t think it’s smart for her to do any interviews. Let her do her thing but no interviews at all with anyone.”
A minute later, Davidson—who was supposed to be my attorney—responded, “One hundred percent.”
“Thanks pal,” wrote Cohen, quickly adding, “Just no interviews or statements unless through you.”
“Got it,” Davidson responded.
I wonder if they made friendship bracelets as they were colluding against me on behalf of Donald Trump? Michael had evidence, too, that when I finally fired Davidson, he tipped off Cohen immediately that I was going to share my story.
The wise men were wrong about the story dying. Maybe they should have asked a wise woman. It never occurred to any of these men that I would someday have a voice.
EPILOGUE
Though my book has to end somewhere, my story goes on. The last month has been as eventful as any that came before it.
In July, I was arrested while performing at a strip club in Columbus, Ohio, in what seems to have been a politically motivated sting operation orchestrated by a vehemently pro-Trump detective. The bogus charges were dropped first thing the next morning, but only after I endured hours in painfully tight handcuffs and spent the night in jail.