It’s been over five years since Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels, rocked the political world. The former adult film star revealed in 2018 she’d been paid $130,000 in hush money by Donald Trump’s attorney-fixer Michael Cohen to silence her story about a sexual encounter with the then-candidate ahead of the 2016 presidential election. However, even though she’s no longer atop every headline in every newspaper, the story is far from over for Daniels. In Peacock’s new documentary Stormy, the actress-turned-director details just how much of a toll her experience in the spotlight and standing up to a sitting president has taken on her — and how much of that bill is still due.
Here’s a look at some of the major revelations that can be found in the documentary, which hit the streamer on Monday.
Why Stormy Daniels Spoke out on 60 Minutes
Stormy Daniels’ 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper was and remains a much-buzzed affair, as it was famously the first time she could speak out about her sexual encounter with Trump after she believed her non-disclosure agreement with him was nullified by Cohen. More than 22 million people tuned in to watch her segment, in which she revealed several salacious details about the encounter, but according to Stormy, she didn’t see a dime of the media profit that inevitably followed her appearance on the show. In fact, she said she specifically chose 60 Minutes because it wasn’t paid, as she wanted to dispel any appearance that she was simply seeking fame and fortune by speaking out.
Why she has a real fear of retribution
One running theme of Stormy is just how much mayhem Daniels’ decision to speak out caused for her and her family. In addition to receiving an endless onslaught of death threats on social media, she was also hounded at her home — with one person even shooting her horse with a rubber bullet in hopes of drawing her out and another nearly causing a car accident while her young daughter was in the car with her. Daniels was so afraid for her personal safety that she even recorded a last will and testament in the case that she was murdered by a political partisan.
How she handled her attorney’s spectacular downfall
Another truly gripping element of the feature is its real-time documentation of the fallout between Daniels and her hush money case attorney Michael Avenatti. Daniels revealed that she wasn’t aware that Avenatti was filing a defamation suit against Trump for calling her story a “con job,” saying, “Michael Avenatti had done a lot of things without telling me necessarily he was going to do them. I found out actually he filled the defamation by reading about it on Twitter.” (That lawsuit has had tremendously negative financial repercussions for Daniels, who has been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to the former president.) Worse, of course, was the moment she realized he’d redirected her book tour earnings to his own accounts by forging her signature. “He betrayed me in every way,” Daniels said of the discovery. “It’s really heartbreaking and upsetting.”
Peacock
What her attorney wrote in his apology letter
After Avenatti was convicted of fraud and identity theft for his scheme to steal from Daniels, she received an apology letter that she believed to be anything but. She read the entire letter aloud in the documentary — and added a few colorful annotations throughout.
Dear Stormy, I write to apologize to you for my actions and conduct over the last three years and especially the last three months. I’ve had a significant amount of time to reflect on my life — [“’cause you in prison, b****”] our friendship and my legal representation of you. It is obvious that I failed you in many respects and that I disappointed and let you down in multiple ways. I’ve tried my best to serve you in many ways as a friend, confidant, and advisor. I made myself available to you 24/7 and in my support to you. But along the way, I know that I failed. I wish that we could turn back the clock — [“so that I’d be better at stealing from you?”] — turn back the clock so that the mistakes I made would never be repeated. I am truly sorry. Michael
How she had a history of personal pain
One of the most difficult aspects of Stormy isn’t just the constant series of threats lodged against her and her family but also the harm she’d already endured well before any of her public troubles began. In Stormy, she takes a journey back to her childhood home and recalls that she was sexually abused by a neighbor when she was nine years old, adding, “He’s dead 1710797658. It was sad. Because I wanted to kill him. I never told anyone, ever.”
How her marriage crumbled in the midst of her public fight
Another very raw and real element of Stormy is in the up close and very personal look it offers about the collapse of Daniels’ then nine-year-long marriage to her former husband Glen Crain. Several of their strained conversations are recorded and shared in the documentary, and, after she was famously arrested in an Ohio strip club, she’s shown trying to go home and patch things up — only to find an empty home with her daughter taken away. The film also offers a somehow hopeful update about their relationship — that they’ve learned to co-parent in peace — but, as always, Daniels still lives in fear that everything she has and everyone she loves could be taken away from her.
How she faced a surprising false charge
Though she was arrested in Ohio during a dancing show, those charges were quickly dismissed. So Daniels was quite surprised to learn from a border agent, as she attempted to enter Canada for another job, that her FBI record reflected more than a dozen assault charges — all of which were entered without the agency’s knowledge, no less!
How she gained an unlikely ally
Perhaps the biggest surprise of Stormy is the fact that, once Trump was indicted in 2023 for the hush money scandal, Daniels again found herself on the receiving end of threatening messages… but there was one offering of support she didn’t expect: “When the indictment happened, Michael Cohen actually texted me and expressed extreme fear for my safety.”
Stormy, Streaming Now, Peacock