Full Disclosure

by Stormy Daniels

  I tentatively pushed open the doors, and I remember my heels clacking on the marble. Inside the doors was a smaller foyer with a heavy wood table with a beautiful flower arrangement. And no Donald Trump.

  “Helllllllooo?” I called out.

  And Trump came swooping in, wearing black silk pajamas and slippers.

  “Hi there,” he said.

  Look at this motherfucker, I thought. I was just so mad.

  “Excuse me, I have the wrong room,” I said, adding a southern edge of polite malice to my voice. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Hefner. I’m looking for Mr. Trump.”

  His jaw went slack, and his eyes bugged.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “Go put some fucking clothes on.”

  Like some sort of cartoon, he whizzed out of the foyer. I continued on into the room, which looked like an apartment. There was a long sideboard table with wineglasses and a complete living room setup and dining room table. I threw my purse on the couch and sat down, resigned to waiting for this idiot to get dressed.

  I think he was scared I was going to leave, because he was back almost instantly. It was like he went in the phone booth and leapt out in a full suit. It was a nice one, dark navy, which he’d paired with a tie.

  “That’s more appropriate,” I said. I was still mad.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked, reflexively walking over to the wineglasses.

  “Oh, I don’t drink,” I said.

  He paused. “And you’re…” He stopped himself. I know he really wanted to say, “You’re a porn star and you don’t drink?”

  “No,” I said.

  “At all?”

  “No.”

  It was true, back then I had at most two glasses of champagne a year.

  He looked at me with the same face he made when he found out I was a director. “That’s interesting,” he said. “I don’t drink, either.”

  “Not at all?” I said, taking my turn to be surprised.

  “I don’t like the taste of alcohol,” he said. “And I find people make poor financial decisions when they’ve been drinking.”

  “I know! That’s one of the reasons I don’t drink. I’ve been stripping since I was seventeen, and I can’t tell you how many clubs I’ve been in where girls get drunk and lose their money. I was like, ‘Not for me.’ I totally get it.”

  He smiled. “Our businesses,” he said, “are kind of a lot alike, but different.”

  “Yeah!” We laughed.

  “Well, can I get you a water?”

  “Sure.”

  We started talking, which meant he proceeded to go on and on without asking me anything about myself. It was one pretentious brag after another. I will spare you. I found myself getting more and more offended. My Louisiana roots were showing, and this was just socially inappropriate. When you’ve invited someone to meet, it can’t be a one-sided conversation. I’m not his therapist, and this was not a job interview.

  Plus, I was freaking hungry. I needed a bowl of pretzels, at least, if I was going to sit through this. You said there’d be dinner, I thought. His monologue went on for a good ten or fifteen minutes, which is an eternity when your stomach’s growling and you’re alone with a bore.

  “Have you seen my magazine?”

  Wow, he actually asked me a question. I shook my head no.

  “It’s not out yet, but I have an advance copy,” he said. “Would you like to see it?”

  It didn’t matter, he was already up. He grabbed a satchel sitting on the side table and pulled out the magazine to flash it in front of me. I know it was some kind of money magazine with him on the cover, and a lot of people assume it was Forbes because of the timing, but I didn’t even look at it.

  “Really?” I snapped, looking up at him. “Does this work for you normally?”

  He looked perplexed. Like I’d asked a dog an algebra problem. Reader, I was hangry—the volatile mix of hunger and anger.

  “Are you so insecure that you have to brag about yourself,” I continued, “or are you just a fucking asshole? Which is it?”

  He was so stunned, he just stood there. I lowered my voice to growl, “Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said in a quiet voice.

  I held out my hand, palm up. “Hand it over,” I said. When he didn’t immediately give the magazine to me, I snatched it from him and rolled it up. “Turn around and fucking drop ’em,” I said.

  It was a power moment, not at all sexual. It wasn’t dirty play or even foreplay. It was me being pissed off and him being shocked and neither of us wanting to back down from a challenge. He went to take it back and I wouldn’t let him.

  “I’m serious!” I said. For a second, I almost lost my nerve. He was still “The Donald,” and he was much older than me. I was twenty-seven, and this guy was more than twice my age—an elder who should be respected.

  But he turned, lowering his pants just enough for me to give him a couple of swaps. I got up and tossed the magazine on the side table with every intention of leaving. Because where do you go from that moment?

  This is what stopped me: he turned around and said, in a slow, appraising voice, “I like you.” He fixed the belt of his pants and added, “You remind me of my daughter.”

  Now, I know everyone has made that sound sexual, and I feel so sorry for Ivanka because she’s had to hear all these things. Yes, he said what he said, but it was not a creepy or sexual conversation. It was not some perverted, “You remind me of my daughter. She’s so hot.” No, it was, “You remind me of my daughter.” And these were the exact words he added: “You’re smart, you’re beautiful. You’re just like her. You’re a woman to be reckoned with.”

  “Thank you,” I said. His whole demeanor had changed. His peacock plumage was now folded down and he became a more normal human being.

  “Do you know about my daughter? Have you seen her?”

  “Yes, she’s very beautiful.” Because she is. She’s stunning. It was a compliment, not a come-on. He seemed to be off-script. He was genuinely shocked that he’d just had his ass whipped. So, this was now the third time that I had seen him shocked. Once when he found out I was a director, then when he found out I didn’t drink, and now that I had spanked him. He was walking around the room, and I could tell a plan was forming in his head.

  “Have you ever seen my TV show?” he asked.

  Oh, God, I thought, here we go again. When I didn’t answer, he asked, “Have you ever watched The Apprentice?”

  “No,” I said, quick and dismissive. I thought we’d gotten past both the pajama seduction and annoying bragging portions of the evening.

  “Wait,” he sputtered. “Well, you know what it is. It’s a huge hit.”

  “Yeah, I get the gist,” I said. I’m not really a TV person, but the show had become inescapable in the two years it had been on. Reality stars were starting to be in the tabloids I read when I got my nails done. People like Omarosa were suddenly “celebrities,” and “You’re fired” was the big catchphrase.

  He stopped pacing to look right at me. “You,” he said, “should be on that show.”

  “What?”

  “You should be on The Apprentice,” he said. “You’d be fabulous on it. Fabulous. You’d be huge.”

  He was using all the outsized, grand words we know him for now. But it wasn’t for show. He was having a genuine moment. An epiphany.

  “They’ll never let me on,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I am a porn star and it’s NBC,” I said. “Never gonna happen.”

  His lip curled just slightly at the mere suggestion of the word “no.” It gave me an idea about how I could fuck with The Donald.

  I leaned in and said slowly, “Even you aren’t that powerful.”

  “What do you mean?” he said. “It’s my show.”

  “I don’t care. Even you can’t do that.”

  Look, in my mind, one of two things was gonna happe
n: either he does it and I’m on The Apprentice, or I get to say “I told you so” and I take a couple more feathers out of his tail. Both were very appealing to me. I’d take either.

  “No, if you want to do it, I think it would be great,” he said, laying out his case. “First of all, it would show the world that you’re not a stereotypical porn star, and people would tune in for the surprise. It would be sensational. Sensational. Second, it would be great for both of us. Imagine the ratings it will bring.”

  My friends have asked me if I think he was just leading me on, but I honestly feel that it was a genuine conversation. I could see his wheels turning and watched him do the mental gymnastics of a cost-benefit analysis in his head. I would bring a built-in fan base in a valuable demographic, and me on TV would be shocking, but not in the way people think. I truly believe his initial thought about this was with his brain, not his dick.

  “I understand.” I shrugged. “But you can’t do that.”

  “No, here’s the thing,” he said. “I have a wild card. Every season I can pick someone, if I so choose, that doesn’t have to be…” He trailed off. To this day I don’t know what the selection and vetting process was, but whatever it was, I would skip right through. “You can be my wild card next year, and I think it would be sensational. This will be great. This could be huge.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, noncommittal.

  “I’ve gotta think on this,” he said, sitting down on the couch next to me. “So, are you married?”

  “No,” I said. “I was, but I’m not now. But you’re married. What would your wife think of you being here with me?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. “It’s not a big deal, and anyway, we have separate bedrooms.” I took that to mean that he no longer saw me as someone to sleep with. By spanking him, I wondered if I had alpha-dogged my way out of his writing me off as a bimbo. As if to prove his intentions were now legit, he jumped up to grab a photo. “Have you seen my son?”

  He showed me a photo of Melania holding little Barron, who was only four months old. It was adorable, and I could tell it made him genuinely proud.

  He asked me about my family and I gave him the briefest of bios, but I was impressed that he was at least showing some give-and-take in conversation.

  “I have to ask you a question,” he said. “It’s kind of offensive, so I apologize in advance if you’re offended.”

  “Go ’head,” I said.

  “What’s the situation on royalties in the adult business?”

  I laughed. I was expecting a sex question of some sort. He added, “I’m familiar with TV, and I’ve been in lots of movies, and I get these checks.”

  “There’s nothing,” I said.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I was,” I said. He was honestly beside himself. It started a series of questions about the ins and outs—that joke is never funny—of the adult business. Porn 101 at Trump University. But it was nice. We had moved past the foolishness with the pajamas, and we could respect each other’s insight as two career-obsessed people who happen to be extremely successful at what we do.

  He asked how much money I made per scene and I explained that I have a contract. “If you’re freelance you can make thirty grand per month,” I said, “and you can get more for different sex acts.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, you get paid more for anal,” I said. “A bonus on the back end, so to speak.”

  “Why isn’t everyone freelance?”

  “That’s for the girls who get in the business and want to make as much money as fast as possible. They have a two-year plan or whatever, and they want to make that thirty grand a month and pay for college, whatever.”

  “What’s the problem with that?” he asked.

  “They get shot out,” I said. “There’s a very short shelf life in the adult business if you do too many films. You make a lot of money really quickly, your star rises really quickly, and then it’s gone. Getting a contract, you get a lot less money but you’re in it for the long run.”

  “Well, how much money do you make?”

  At the time I was making seven thousand dollars a month from Wicked, including my writing and directing fees.

  “Well, that’s—” he said, making a face. “Why?”

  “I make one movie about every six to eight weeks. There are girls who make six movies a week while I’m doing ten movies a year. I won’t get shot out, plus Wicked spends millions of dollars advertising me and creating my brand. I can go out and do dance bookings and say I am a Wicked contract star. But I own the name ‘Stormy Daniels’ and stormydaniels.com. If I leave Wicked, I leave with my name. Whereas this other girl makes a whole bunch of money the first year and then she’s out.”

  “So, you are smart,” he said, nodding.

  “Okay, I have a question to ask you that may be offensive,” I said.

  “Ooh,” he said. “What is it?” I think he thought I was going to ask him something dirty, too.

  I pointed to his hair. “This,” I said, taking a long beat. “What’s going on with this?”

  “I know,” he said with a smile. “It’s ridiculous. Come on. First of all, I have a mirror. Second of all, I have had every celebrity stylist—even Paul Mitchell himself—wanting to give me a makeover. I could have whatever. I could basically have a head transplant if I wanted, okay?”

  “Okay, well, why don’t you?”

  “Everybody talks about it,” he said with an air of in-on-the-joke smugness. “It’s my thing. It’s my trademark. Plus, if I let this person do it, it will just piss off all these other people. ‘Well, why did you let him do it?’ I know a lot of people who would kill to do it. The best. The best of the best.”

  “Easy, Samson.”

  It was another shot at him, but he seemed to enjoy it. I wasn’t putting on an act—that’s just my personality and what I do to people who I work with. The Donald was no different. Just a bigger fish to fry, which made me want to turn up the heat. And while I had calmed down, I was still angry that I had to prove he couldn’t just order me up like room service. Where was this dinner he promised, anyway?

  “What do you like to do for fun?”

  Oh, you’re learning, I thought, like, how to have a normal conversation. “I ride horses,” I said. “I don’t have a horse right now because I am too busy, but one day I hope to go back to riding.”

  “Oh, I am thinking of doing this show-jumping thing.” He actually was, and he ended up hosting the Central Park Horse Show at Trump Rink in New York. I told him I don’t do Grand Prix show jumping and started to explain three-day eventing competitions, but I took pity on him as I saw his interest fading.

  “Well,” I said, “what else do you do besides golf?”

  His eyes lit up when he heard “golf,” which I think was all he heard. He literally looked like he woke up.

  “You golf?” he asked.

  “No, my tits are too big to swing.”

  “Well, if you ever want to check out one of my courses, they have fabulous restaurants. The best food in the world. If you ever want to, call me and I will set it up for you.” That got him talking—at length—about his plans to build “the greatest golf course the world has ever seen” in Scotland. He said he was having a hard time getting it started.

  He was getting agitated talking about it, but there was nothing that made him seem as petulant and prone to tantrums as he has been as president. He was just run-of-the-mill insecure, which I find happens a lot with people with money that they didn’t earn themselves. They harbor this inner self-esteem problem that they try to mask by overcompensating. That’s him to a tee.

  He asked me where I lived, so he could recommend a course, and I told him I was thinking about moving to Florida. “Oh!” he said, perking up again. “I’m building a new condo tower there. Tampa Bay. I’ll get you a good deal.” Mind you, there has been some confusion about that in the press. People, even my gay dad K
eith Munyan, got the impression that Trump was going to give me a condo. No, he was going to sell me one.

  “If I bought a condo from you, at least that might prove we met,” I said. “My friend Alana didn’t believe me. I said I would call her…”

  “Let’s call her,” he said.

  I dialed her number and she answered after a few rings. “I’m here,” I said. I mostly called her because she thought I was lying and I couldn’t stand that. “Come hang out with us.”

  “I’m with Cindy,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

  I clicked off and he looked at me expectantly. “How do you know her?” he asked.

  “She’s actually my neighbor in L.A. and I randomly bumped into her,” I said. “She’s in the business.”

  “Is she a big star like you?”

  “She’s not a contract girl,” I said, and he nodded. I smiled—I had taught him some of the language of the adult business.

  “Have you worked with her?”

  “No, I haven’t directed her,” I said. “But I have directed her husband a couple of times.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “She’s married? How does that work?”

  “Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…,” I started, as if I were speaking to a child. Then I laughed. “It’s like any industry. You date who you meet, and when you work all the time, you’re going to naturally click with people. There’s a separation. You can love your job and the work you create, and you can also love someone.”

  That was all rainbows, but it was starting to be a pride thing for me that Alana wasn’t calling back. This girl didn’t believe me. I just needed her to know I wasn’t making up a story. So, I called again, and when I got her I said, “Are you gonna come?”

  “Yeah, come!” Donald shouted.

  “Who is that?” asked Alana.

  “That’s Mr. Trump,” I said. “I told you. Do you want to talk to him?”

  He grabbed the phone, “Come out with us,” he said. “Come party. Come have a good time.”

  I started cracking up because there was no alcohol and definitely no drugs. I mean, this is the lamest party ever, if this is a party. If someone says “come party with us,” it sounds like some Hangover-style orgy with cocaine on gilded Trump-branded mirrors. And that’s probably what Alana pictured. He should have just said, “Come tell me about royalties in the adult industry, and I’ll tell you about my golf club. We’ll drink bottles of water and it will be fabulous.”