Stormy Daniels might not be the only porn star suing President Trump’s attorney. Alana Evans, a fellow adult-film actress, is planning her own defamation case against Michael Cohen, The Daily Beast has learned.
“Because of his words, Stormy and I are continued to be called liars even after the man admitted he actually did pay her off,” Evans said.
Evans said some longtime fans have turned against her because of Cohen’s statements, which deny Daniels’ tryst with Trump.
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“We work very hard in our industry to show the world that we’re credible people,” Evans, who just celebrated her 20-year anniversary in porn, told The Daily Beast. “The industry is filled with strong, intelligent women like us.
“To have worked so hard to be such a solid person in the business and have one person strip it away from you because they’re lying to protect the president… it’s terrible,” she said.
Evans said that Cohen’s statements—which came after she spoke publicly about Daniels—were defamatory, even though Cohen didn’t use her name in particular.
In January, Cohen issued a statement to The Daily Beast in response to Evans’ story, saying, “These rumors have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.”
(In her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Daniels said she was pressured into denying the affair after her nondisclosure agreement was revealed in January. She signed statements provided by Cohen, who then released them to the media. “If it was untruthful, why did you sign it?” Cooper asked in the Sunday episode. “Because they made it sound like I had no choice,” Daniels replied.)
Meanwhile, Evans also referred to an Independent report where Cohen’s attorney, David Schwartz, called Daniels’ account a “complete and utter lie.”
Evans says she was the only corroborator speaking publicly about Daniels’ tryst at the time. Schwartz called the story “recycled old fake news that has no validity whatsoever” and said “everyone named, including Mr. Cohen vehemently denies this,” the Independent reported.
“It is fake news like this that has people questioning what is real and what is fake,” Schwartz concluded in a statement to the U.K.-based outlet.
Cohen and his attorneys didn’t return messages for comment by press time.
The revelation comes as Daniels—born Stephanie Clifford—filed court papers accusing Trump and Cohen of defamation, and after her 60 Minutes interview, in which she claimed a goon threatened her to stay silent about Trump in 2011.
Daniels is suing Trump to void the “hush agreement” she signed days before the 2016 election over their alleged relationship. Her lawsuit lists as defendants Trump and Essential Consultants, an LLC that Cohen created to pay for her silence.
In a first amended complaint filed Monday, Daniels’ attorney says Cohen “meant to convey that Ms. Clifford is a liar, someone who should not be trusted, and that her claims about her relationship with Mr. Trump is ‘something [that] isn’t true.’
“Mr. Cohen’s statement exposed Mr. Clifford to hatred, contempt, ridicule, and shame, and discouraged others from associating or dealing with her,” the document continued.
Team Daniels was referring to Cohen’s public statement on Feb. 13, when he admitted to paying Daniels $130,000 of his own money but said that “neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction.”
“Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage. I will always protect Mr. Trump,” the statement read.
Shortly after the 60 Minutes episode aired, an attorney for Cohen sent a “cease-and-desist” letter to Daniels, Reuters reported. The letter referred to Daniels’ claim that a stranger threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, weeks after she spoke to In Touch magazine about Trump. The man warned, “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.” While Daniels never explicitly stated that Cohen was involved, his lawyers pounced.
“Mr. Cohen had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any such person or incident, and does not even believe that any such person exists, or that such incident ever occurred,” said the letter, sent by attorney Brent Blakely to Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Evans said she was thrilled to hear of Daniels’ defamation claim, as she gears up to file one of her own by the end of the month.
“We’re not going to stand by as these two powerful men spread their falsehoods about what happened,” Evans told The Daily Beast.
The adult film star has publicly spoken about Daniels’ alleged 2006 romp with The Donald at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Back then, Evans was Daniels’ neighbor and close friend and happened to be in Lake Tahoe, too. Evans said Daniels repeatedly called her and tried persuading her to come to Trump’s hotel room, but Evans declined the invitation.
“Stormy calls me four or five times, by the last two phone calls she’s with Donald [Trump] and I can hear him, and he’s talking through the phone to me saying, ‘Oh come on Alana, let’s have some fun! Let’s have some fun! Come to the party, we’re waiting for you,’” Evans told The Daily Beast earlier this year.
The next day, Daniels dished on her rendezvous with the reality TV star. She told Evans, “All I’m going to say is: I ended up with Donald in his hotel room. Picture him chasing me around his hotel room in his tighty-whities.”
“I was like, ‘Oh I really didn’t need to hear that!’ Then she said he offered her keys to his condos in Florida, and I was like, ‘Wow guess you had a good night,’ and that was the last we ever spoke of it,” Evans added.
Since her interview, Evans has appeared on TV to discuss her reaction to every installment of what’s become the Stormy soap opera—and, as the president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, to support her friend and fellow performer.
On Monday, Evans told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that Daniels still has the dress she wore the night she bedded Trump. When asked why that’s the case, Evans replied it was perhaps a “keepsake” or “actual proof” of the affair.
“I can only speculate the things that may be on that dress, especially if it’s never been washed,” Evans said, harkening to the Clinton-Lewinsky probe.
As The Daily Beast reported, Evans and Daniels are allegedly facing threats for speaking out on Trump. One man threatened to shoot Daniels at one of her strip performances on her “Make America Horny Again” tour, Evans said.
Evans said Cohen’s statements are tarnishing her reputation in the industry.
She said she interacts with her fans and has become friends with some of them. When one particular fan called her a liar, Evans said it hurt her. “I’m good to my fans. I interact with them. I’m not untouchable,” she said.
“People were coming at me. Fans that had been my fans for ages for the first time doubted my credibility and said to me, ‘You know, well, Michael Cohen says it’s not true, so Alana, why are you lying?’ and I cried,” Evans said.
