Full Disclosure

by Stormy Daniels

  “Every episode you’re on is better for ratings for me and more money for you,” he said, before taking a long pause. “Gotta figure out a way to keep you on…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll figure out a way to get you the challenges beforehand,” he said. “And we can devise your technique.”

  He was going to have me cheat, and it was 100 percent his idea. He was going to tell me what the tasks were ahead of time, then devise a strategy to win. He never said he would rig it so I would win the whole thing, but he wanted to supply me with an unfair advantage. I felt very uncomfortable with it.

  For six months, we talked on the phone and the plan came up repeatedly. He never once used the word “cheat”—he would talk about strategy and technique. “We have to make sure you stay on, honey bunch.”

  *

  I didn’t see Trump in person again until the next year. He invited me to the January 17, 2007, launch of Trump Vodka. The party was at Les Deux in Hollywood, and the crowd was a gaggle of wannabe stars, including Kim Kardashian, who was two months away from the release of the sex tape that would make her a star. I had just been in Las Vegas to accept the Contract Star of the Year honors at the AVN awards.

  I was smarter now, so when he invited me, I brought along my friend Tera Patrick, who is also an actress in adult film. I wore dark jeans and a gold embroidered top. After we did the red carpet, Trump waved me over as soon as I walked in and kissed me on the mouth in front of everyone.

  “You made it, honey bunch!” he said, his hand on my waist. He was wearing a pale platinum tie and a navy suit. I looked around for any sign of Melania, but she wasn’t there.

  “I did!” I said. I introduced him to Tera, and he brought me over to meet his son Don Jr. Don was there with his then-wife Vanessa, who was pregnant with their first child. I know from recent reports that Karen McDougal was at the party. He didn’t introduce us, but as I go back in my memory I think I remember her in the VIP area. My hat’s off to him for having the balls to juggle two women at the party.

  Trump told me he was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel and asked if I would come to his hotel later that night.

  “Oh, I can’t,” I said. “I’m flying out of LAX tonight.” It was actually true. I was heading to a dance booking.

  “When can I see you again?” he asked. “When are you coming to New York?”

  “I’ll actually be there in a couple months,” I said. I had a dance booking set for the week of my birthday in March.

  “Well, call my office,” he said. “I want to make sure I see you. And we can discuss our project.”

  There was the Apprentice bait again, and I took it.

  I called Trump’s secretary Rhona when I was in New York and she said to be there at twelve thirty that day. I didn’t want to go alone, so I brought this girl Yoli, who was working for me as an assistant. We went right up to his office on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower. He met us, so excited to show us all the memorabilia in his office, which seemed cluttered.

  “I wish it was not so dreary today,” he said, “because the view is fabulous.

  “I’m still working on your thing, darling,” he said quickly as I looked out on the fog blanketing Central Park. “Where are you dancing? It’s so nice to see you.”

  I was dancing at a club called Gallagher’s 2000 in Long Island City, but he barely let me get half of that out before he started talking again. I stopped him short by making fun of his eyebrows.

  “You gotta trim that stuff,” I said, maybe showing off for Yoli but mostly just keeping him in check. “They’re out of control. You look like a Muppet.”

  “I’m so busy,” he said, laughing. “I’m dealing with all this beauty pageant stuff.”

  Yoli perked up. She loved pageants, and honestly, it was hard to get her excited about anything.

  “Do you want to go to the pageant?” he asked me.

  “Yes!” Yoli screamed before I could say anything.

  Fuck, I thought.

  “Oh, I’ll get you the best seats,” he said. “It’s in Hollywood. It will be fabulous. Fabulous.”

  The Miss USA pageant was the following week, on March 23. Trump sent a limo to pick up me and Yoli, who was practically vibrating with excitement. It was at the Kodak Theater in L.A., which was at least nice for me because that’s where they host the Academy Awards.

  I went to the Will Call. “There should be two tickets for Stormy Daniels.”

  “Okaaay,” said the woman. “Who set them aside for you?”

  “Uh, Mr. Trump?”

  She seemed surprised, and I had a momentary panic that we had gotten Yoli’s hopes up for nothing. Maybe he was afraid to use his name?

  “Here we go,” said the woman. “These are great seats.”

  She was right. They were about five rows back, behind press and family. Yoli was riveted, but I don’t remember any of it. I saw Trump onstage, but I didn’t interact with him at all. He called me after so I could assure him it was great.

  The pageant host, Nancy O’Dell, was pregnant, and we would all later find out that Trump had used that as an excuse to try to fire her. Nancy was the “Nancy” Trump was talking about turning him down on the 2005 Access Hollywood “grab ’em by the pussy” tape released by The Washington Post in October 2016. “I did try and fuck her. She was married. And I moved on her very heavily.… I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden, I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything.”

  Hey, watch how you talk about big phony tits, asshole.

  *

  And then Shark Week happened.

  The evening of July 29, 2007, Moz drove me to meet Trump at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. By then, Moz and I were more serious, and I still had never told him that I had had sex with Trump.

  As we drove up the driveway lined with palm trees, I went over my escape plan with Moz. “If I text you, call me and say it’s an emergency.”

  “He’s not going to kill you, Stormy,” he said.

  “In case he makes a move, you’ve gotta get me out of there.”

  Keith Schiller met me outside the hotel and led me to one of the private bungalows in the back of the hotel. The cottages, with pastel pink and green exteriors, were tucked in among acres of citrus trees and flowers that were absolutely beautiful. Keith let me into Trump’s bungalow, where he was waiting.

  “Honey bunch,” he said, “you made it. I’m ordering us dinner. You must have the steak. It is fabulous. Fabulous.”

  I was just relieved that we were actually going to have food this time.

  “We’re almost a done deal getting you on the show,” he said. This season they were doing it with celebrities, which he assured me I was. “You’re a star, darling,” he said.

  “Well, that would be great,” I said. “I would love to be on the show.” Why the hell else was I hanging out with him? Clearly, I wanted to be on the show.

  “We gotta figure out the challenges,” he said. “The season hasn’t started yet, so I don’t know what we’re gonna do. But we’ll figure it out.” He started going on and on about how much he hated Rosie O’Donnell, which seemed like such an insane tangent. Like, let’s get back to me getting on the show. I later found out he had offered her a huge amount of money to compete on Celebrity Apprentice and she turned him down.

  When the food came, I made him cut my steak. Not because I am a kid, but because I just have a thing about meat on the bone. He thought it was funny and went out of his way to apologize for not knowing. Near the end of dinner, he checked the time and hurried over to the couch.

  “It’s Shark Week,” he said. He turned on the Discovery Channel and stretched his arm on the edge of the couch. “Come here, honey bunch,” he said. I inwardly groaned, but sure, let’s cuddle and talk about me getting on your show. I sat under the crook of his arm as he became entranced by the documentary Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack
Ever.

  “Have you heard about this?” he said. “It’s horrible. Horrible.”

  I hadn’t, not being quite as up on sharks as I would learn he was. It’s the incredibly dark and tragic reenactment of the aftermath of the World War II ship Indianapolis sinking in July 1945. They were adrift in shark-infested waters, and the sharks were swarming because of the blood in the water from the dead and injured. Most of the sailors didn’t die in the actual sinking, but then the sharks just picked them off. Six hundred people.

  So, I was sitting in this beautiful bungalow, and I was watching this crazy documentary filmed with real sharks tearing at bodies. And to say this guy was riveted is an understatement. I tried bringing up the Apprentice thing between shark bites, but he kept putting me off. “Disgusting creatures,” he said. “Disgusting.”

  Then, to make it crazier, Hillary Clinton called. I could hear her voice through the receiver, and that accent saying “Donald.”

  “Hello, Hillary,” he said, briefly distracted from the sharks. He kept the movie going but started pacing around the room.

  She was up against Barack Obama seeking the Democratic nomination, and he had a whole conversation about the race, repeatedly mentioning “our plan.” They also discussed a family trip they wanted to take together—something involving a ski area. Who knows if Hillary was just humoring him.

  Even while he was on the phone with Hillary, his attention kept going back to the sharks. At one point he covered the phone to talk to me.

  “I hate sharks,” he said. “I’ll donate to just about anything, but the only shark charity I would donate to is one that promised to kill all the sharks.”

  I nodded, but thought, Well, that’s stupid, because they are part of the food chain. Obviously, they serve a purpose.

  When he hung up, he was effusive about Hillary. “I love her,” he said. “She is so smart.” This would be the fourth time he had donated money to her political career. Trump told me he and Hillary were great friends and that they had gone to the weddings of each other’s children. Not quite true. The Clintons attended his wedding to Melania, but maybe he didn’t want to bring her up.

  “A lot of people say I should run for president someday,” he said in passing, as he made his way to the couch. “They want me to run because I can afford it. Who would want to? This is way more fun.”

  Finally, after two hours of carnage, the sharks were done eating. And Donald was ready to make his move. He turned to look at my face appraisingly.

  “What?” I said.

  “Your nose looks like a little beak, darling.”

  “That’s not a compliment,” I said, kind of mad.

  “No, like an eagle’s.”

  “Also not a compliment!” I yelled.

  “No, no,” he said, “it’s regal.”

  “You really aren’t very good at this,” I said.

  Then he started to trace his finger on my thigh.

  “Oh, I can’t. I’m on my period.” Which wasn’t true.

  Those were the magic words, though, and he was now totally not interested in pursuing sex that night. After all, you can’t have blood in the water.

  *

  The next time we talked, he called me to tell me that I had been right. There was no spot for a porn star on Celebrity Apprentice.

  Okay, we’re done here, I thought.

  “I told you that even you couldn’t do it,” I said, twisting the knife.

  “Well, it was a personal favor to one of the executives,” he told me. His wife had such a huge problem with a porn star contestant that she threatened to leave the guy, he said. “This bitch Roma.”

  “Rhona?” I said. What did his secretary have to do with this?

  “Roma,” he said. I can only assume he meant Touched by an Angel star Roma Downey, the wife of Apprentice executive producer Mark Burnett.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” he said, “It’s not because I couldn’t use my wild card. It’s because she was gonna have a huge problem.” He called her a bitch.

  At this point, Moz and I were engaged, and this whole thing with Trump had become so tiresome. “Okay,” I said.

  He called once or twice more after that, but I didn’t answer.

  There was one final phone call, early on the morning of January 4, 2008. I was renting Keith’s place in Valley Village in L.A. at the time, and Trump called from New York, oblivious to the time difference. I answered with an incredibly angry voice because it was so early.

  It terrified him. He was sputtering about me being mad about something and I could just make out him saying “Jenna Jameson.” I guess Tito Ortiz was a contestant and his girlfriend, Jenna, got some screen time on the show the night before. He was freaking out that I would be furious that the show had let another porn star on when he couldn’t get me on.

  “She’s not very smart,” he said.

  “I didn’t see it, I don’t really care.”

  “You didn’t watch the show?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I said. “Okay, I gotta go.”

  “Good-bye, honey b—”

  I clicked the phone off. Well, that’s done, I thought.

  Life goes on. It’s easy to move on from bad sex with a billionaire and his fizzled plan to game out his reality show competition.

  I didn’t think about Trump again unless I was flipping through channels and saw him on my way to a more interesting show. I had sex with that, I’d say to myself. Eech.

  FIVE

  It was a Saturday morning, and I was already in heels and a sexy cop costume, chasing Adam Levine through the sketchiest part of downtown L.A. This was July 7, 2007, a few weeks before Shark Week. I was hired to appear in the Maroon 5 video for “Wake Up Call,” the second single off their second album. Jonas Åkerlund was directing it as a trailer for a fake NC-17 film starring Adam as a guy covering up a murder. Jonas had already directed videos for Madonna, the Rolling Stones, U2, and Metallica, so it was pretty awesome to be on the set.

  “Can I get a gun?” I asked the props guy.

  “No,” he said.

  “How about a Taser?” I said.

  “Nope,” he said.

  Thunder and Lightning would have to be intimidating enough. It was such a big video, complete with a car exploding, that the head of the label, James Diener, came to the set. A little under six feet tall, with a shaved head, James is a New Yorker and natural-born talent scout.

  “Hey, you direct, right?” he asked me during a down moment.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I have this really cool idea,” he said. “I have this new band I just signed, completely different vibe than Maroon 5. They’re still working on the album, but it would be pretty sensational if you directed their video.”

  At that point, directing a music video was on my wish list. I had been watching everything Jonas did on set. This seemed like my way into that world.

  “What’s the name of the band?” I asked.

  “Hollywood Undead.”

  A couple of weeks later, James emailed me the unmastered version of what would be the band’s debut album, Swan Songs. “I think the first single is going to be ‘Undead,’” he wrote. I played it, ready to start thinking of visuals. And I hated it. There was no way I was going to direct this as my first video. Fortunately, the album kept getting pushed back, all the way to September 2008, and then the date they chose to shoot the video changed to a time when I would be directing a film. By then I had married Mike Moz and realized that I needed to figure a way out of that because it just wasn’t working. He had been a great motivator in business but was a nonstarter as a husband. I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t she learn from the first marriage? Believe me, I asked myself that same question. The problem was that he was so enmeshed in my business that it would take some time for me to get out.

  “I have a lot on my plate right now,” I told James.

  “Well, could you be one of the gir
ls in the video?” James asked me. They needed someone to make out with the lead singer.

  “Sorry, no,” I said.

  The finished album was a hit, especially with tweens. It’s rap rock, with the band members all having pseudonyms like J-Dog and wearing spooky masks. It wasn’t my style, but I just kept hearing about them, whether it was a girlfriend saying she was auditioning for one of their videos or dating one of the guys from the band. It became a running joke, and I’d roll my eyes every time I heard the band mentioned yet another time.

  I was living in Tampa and I had a friend there named Kayvon Sarfehjooy, a DJ and producer. On April 9, 2009, he called me to tell me his friend’s band was playing 98Rockfest the following night at the St. Pete Times Forum, now called the Amalie Arena.

  “They get in tonight, and you should come out,” she said. “They’re scene kids from Hollywood. You could direct their video.”

  That got my interest. By then I had directed the “Ballad of Billy Rose” video for a band called 16 Second Stare. “What’s their name?”

  “Hollywood Undead,” he said.

  “What the fuck?”

  “It’s a cool name,” he said.

  “The universe just keeps trying to make this happen,” I said.

  “Make what happen?”

  “Fuck if I know,” I said.

  Kayvon thought I would hit it off with Jorel Decker, the aforementioned J-Dog, but it was also a chemistry test with the band. Now that they were popular, I was interested in directing their next video. We met up at a club across the street from the arena. It was a small place, but not so small that it could hide that it was dead on a Thursday night. It was a Tampa club trying to look Miami, with clean lines and white lacquer. We got a table and the band got me a bottle of champagne. I wore a white dress, so I looked like I was doing some sort of camouflage with the white tables and couches. I could see what Kayvon meant about them being sceney. They were dressed nice for supposedly hard rockers.