Stormy Daniels doesn’t regret working with her previous lawyer, Michael Avenatti, but she does regret trusting him.
“He just went off the rails,” she told The Daily Beast in a recent interview at her home in New Orleans. Daniels said she would only run for president if Avenatti ever announced he was running—he announced he would not run in 2020 last December—because she would want to run a kamikaze-style campaign to take him down.
“If he decides to run, I’m going to run just so I can start a GoFundMe for the sheer purpose of making smear campaign videos against him,” Daniels said, laughing. “Just for fun. I bet people would actually be into it.”
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As for who she’s supporting in the 2020 race, Daniels said she hasn’t made up her mind yet, but she’s currently leaning toward Elizabeth Warren.
“If I had to pick somebody right now, I would probably say Elizabeth Warren,” Daniels said. “I’m always really hesitant to say because I don’t know if me saying something helps or hurts the person.”
The attention Daniels has received—around her alleged affair with Trump and the $130,000 in hush money she was given by Michael Cohen—hasn’t always been good for her, she explained.
House Democrats announced after our interview that they will be holding hearings focused on the payments that were made to her and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.
“Things are in a lull, but shit is about to hit the fan again,” Daniels said. “It comes in waves. A whole bunch of stuff happens, and then they schedule court dates and stuff is kind of quiet, but none of the cases are done. We’re just waiting for our next appearance.” (The Daily Beast reported Friday that House Democrats were leaning towards not calling Daniels to testify.)
Daniels said she moved to New Orleans from Dallas, Texas, because someone had published her address in Dallas, and she was worried about the safety of her 8-year-old daughter.
“I left Dallas because I was worried about the news trucks outside my house. I thought her life was in danger, so that’s the main reason I stayed on tour all last summer,” Daniels said. “Every time I wasn’t advertised as being somewhere else, I had about 24 to 48 hours before people figured out I wasn’t scheduled to be somewhere, and my address got printed, so then they’d show up at my house and she couldn’t go ride her bike. People tried to take pictures of her.”
Daniels and I first met when she hosted a party called Midsummer Night’s Cream at a bar called Grand Pres. She explained the proceeds were going to the city’s LGBT community center and that there would be a costume contest where everyone dressed up as fairies.
The event on Aug. 1 was as wild as you would expect. Queer men and women donned scantily clad outfits, and there was a professional photographer taking photos of people with Daniels—who was wearing a black and blue corset, wings and a tutu.
A few weeks later, her friend Aaron Yeager, who helped her organize the queer party, in attendance, we met at Daniels' home. She introduced me to her 8-week-old Jack Russell terrier, Luci Furr Daniels.
Daniels talked about the event company she had recently started, Swamp Trash Events. She explained that it’s not a charity, but she is going to be hosting more events that benefit charities through the company. Before the queer event, Daniels had hosted a block party in the Marigny section of New Orleans where the proceeds went to the New Orleans Abortion Fund.
“We did that one on Father’s Day to be especially inappropriate,” she said.
Daniels has long had trouble donating to charities simply because she’s in the porn industry—once even having a check she mailed to an animal rescue returned ripped to pieces—and her connection to President Trump has obviously elevated her name.
Yeager said when they were having trouble finding charities to give to, Daniels told him they should just start their own, which they’re in the process of doing. The charity will focus on LGBTQ issues, animal welfare and more.
Regarding queer issues, Stormy explained she was raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by two gay dads, Keith Munyan and J.D. Barrale, and she’s “always been bisexual.” Stormy said she had her first relationship with a girl when she was in high school and has dated men and women since then.
Daniels said she started Swamp Trash Events because she thought she would only be in the spotlight for so long during the scandal with Trump, and she wanted to do something good with it. She said she’s since realized that the spotlight comes and goes as a scandal involving the president unravels.
Daniels said she’s committed to working to help the community in New Orleans, and that’s one of the reasons she started Swamp Trash. She said her next event will probably benefit a battered women’s shelter.
“I want to do a battered women’s event,” Daniels said. “I want to be wildly inappropriate and do a fish fry and the logo will be, ‘Batter your food, not your women.’ Sometimes I’m funny.”
