On the morning of April 17, Stormy Daniels made a hotly anticipated appearance on The View.
Flanked by her omnipresent attorney, Michael Avenatti, the adult actress/director defended her decision to speak out against President Trump and his attorney, Michael Cohen—two men she’s suing over a $130,000 payoff and accompanying nondisclosure agreement intended to muzzle her over an alleged affair with the president.
During the interview, Daniels claimed that, shortly after she first told her story to In Touch magazine back in 2011, a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot and threatened her life, urging her to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story.” The duo then released a composite sketch of the purported parking-lot assailant, with Daniels explaining that she didn’t go to the authorities seven years ago because she both feared for her safety and, as a newly minted mother, didn’t want her husband at the time to learn about the supposed Trump tryst. She did, however, concede that, “I always feel like you should stand up for yourself and you should report it.”
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On the other side of the country in sunny Los Angeles, Tasha Reign was tuning in to Daniels’ sit-down and couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“It’s very upsetting to see her speak like that and then I think, but I know the real you,” says Reign. “I was there. I saw what you did.”
I’m seated with Reign at a restaurant in West Hollywood. About an hour into our interview, one where she defended Daniels for “doing our industry justice” in her battle against the Trump apparatus (Reign is a liberal) and called out Jimmy Kimmel for his “disgusting” treatment of her during their late-night chat, the 29-year-old begins to tear up.
“It’s tricky...” she says, her voice cracking with emotion, “because I don’t even like Stormy. I don’t like her at all.”
Reign says she has a “horrible story” to tell me about herself and Daniels.
“I was sexually assaulted by one of her crewmembers. He groped and grabbed me from behind,” she says, wiping away tears. “I spoke up immediately because I was in the moment, and I was so proud of myself. She was the director that day, I went straight to her and straight to the man that did it, we had a conversation about it, I went to the owner of Wicked Pictures, I did all the right things. And she did not handle the situation appropriately, respectfully, or professionally. So it’s a little bit outrageous when I hear her say things about how she is standing up for women and wants to be a voice for other women to be able to come forward when I was assaulted on her set and she didn’t give me any care or attention, and didn’t even send that man home.”
According to Reign, the alleged incident in question occurred on Nov. 15 of last year during the filming of The Set Up, an adult movie directed by Daniels and produced under the Wicked Pictures banner.
“I’d always looked up to Stormy,” recalls Reign. “I’d shot for her before, ran into her at conventions. We even traveled once to Seattle at the beginning of my career when I believe they were considering me for a contract-girl position at Wicked. I know her, so I was stoked.”
Reign was the lead in the film, starring alongside the adult actor Michael Vegas. She even had some meaty dialogue. On Nov. 14, the first day of the shoot, she says everything went relatively smoothly—save an uncomfortable conversation about accused sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein. Reign says that Daniels was “basically making fun of the Me Too movement, in so many words,” joking to the crew, “Oh, I could be seen as Harvey Weinstein because I’m flirtatious with my crewmembers and I can be inappropriate.” It made Reign uncomfortable, but she let it go. (Daniels has made statements critical of #MeToo on Twitter.)
Then on day two of filming, Nov. 15, she tells me that after getting her hair and makeup done and posing for stills—the hardcore photos that are used as online banners for videos—she was asked to fill out paperwork in another room.
“I’m fully clothed in my outfit, I’m standing and signing my paperwork, and all of a sudden I feel two hands from behind me grab my ass and make sexual moaning noises,” remembers Reign. “I felt a pit in my stomach and thought, shit, my scene partner, Michael Vegas, is in the other room… who is this?”
She continues: “So I turn around and it’s a crewmember from set. I look him directly in the eye and go, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ and I look so upset. So I thought, OK, I can either ruin my makeup, which took an hour and a half to do, or I can go do my scene as quickly as it’s going to take and then as soon as it’s over, I can go and confront Stormy, the director who has all the power that day on set, and the man that did this to me.”
As soon as the scene ended and Daniels yelled “cut,” Reign says she began bawling her eyes out. “My poor partner was like, ‘What did I do!’ and I said, ‘Michael, you didn’t do anything.’ He looked alarmed and so concerned. He’s a good guy,” offers Reign.
Vegas corroborated Reign’s post-scene emotional state, telling The Daily Beast, “I remember the shoot. Relaxed mood. Scene went fine. Right after we wrapped and there was some shuffling around I remember seeing Tasha come back into the room. Her demeanor had changed but it was hard to tell why or what had happened. Everything came to a halt so that the issue could be addressed, and everyone on set seemed concerned for the well-being of us as performers. But I don’t know if there was ever a real resolution.”
There wasn’t, alleges Reign: “So then I confront Stormy and this guy in the hallway and I’m like, ‘This is what happened. What on earth were you thinking?’ The guy starts backpedaling and goes, ‘Oh, I was just trying to get through.’ And I said, ‘If you were trying to get through, why did you grope me? And why did you make sexual moaning noises?’ and he says, ‘Oh, it was a joke.’ I said, ‘That’s sexual harassment and assault. If you don’t know that, that’s a problem.’ Stormy is there, and she’s totally silent. Just neutral. Which is such a problem. He says sorry, starts talking about how he has a family—which all men do when they get accused.”
Reign says she was next asked by Daniels if she needed to go into an adjacent room to cool down. She alleges that she did, and Daniels followed her in shortly after. “Stormy says, ‘I’m sorry,’ gives me a hug, and then she shames me by saying [of her alleged abuser], ‘You probably made him cry. He’s crying right now,’” Reign recounts. “And I thought, wow, I’ve lost all respect for you, and I’m also immediately calling your producer and your company and telling them exactly what occurred.”
The on-set assault allegation first surfaced on Jan. 14, when Reign tweeted at Daniels, “I was innapropriately groped and sexually harassed by one of the men on your crew November 15th right before my BG scene. Which you were then made aware of that day. You continued to allow him to stay on the set with no reprocussion. I never questioned your directorial skills.” Daniels then fired back: “You were not. I was right there…as were several other people and NONE of them will agree with you. How dare you try to undo 15 years of my reputation and his career. I will not allow it. Find me one person who will state otherwise. Best wishes.”
Presented with the allegation, Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, issued the following statement to The Daily Beast on behalf of his client: “Ms. Daniels’ recollection of what happened is vastly different. Further, after the incident in question, Wicked performed a thorough investigation and found no substantiation for the allegations. It simply did not occur as Ms. Reign suggests.”
After the disappointing meeting with Daniels, Reign says that she contacted the executives at Wicked Pictures—including owner Steve Orenstein—and they immediately had a meeting.
“We’ve had about five meetings since then, and I felt heard at first,” says Reign. “Steve is promising me that Wicked is going to implement new training policies and they’ll be the first company to do it. That gave me chills, because it would be so great that this good thing came from this bad thing, and maybe the rest of the industry will look at Wicked and follow suit.
“But later on,” she adds, “Steve talks to the crewmember and he says, ‘Well, that never happened.’ He’s denying it happened, and even Stormy is denying it happened—and she wasn’t there when it happened, so how could she know? I have a lawyer, so I’m still deciding what to do. The owner of Wicked said in an email that it’s ‘resolved’ because [the crewmember] will never work there again since Stormy doesn’t work there anymore, and he was only working there because of Stormy. I was like, that’s not ‘resolved,’ that’s ‘convenient.’ I asked about where the new papers are or actions that they were going to implement, and it’s been radio silence for the last two months.”
When I brought Reign’s account to Wicked Pictures, they issued a statement through their spokesperson that read: “We have been and are appropriately investigating.” Pressed further, the company refused to elaborate.
“Now I have to decide on my next steps,” Reign says. “I have to speak up, because this is unacceptable. And I’m not after money. I’ll sue you for a dollar, I don’t care about the money. What I want is for you to recognize, a) This occurred, and b) Here are the new protocols that people have to follow on set, because on a porn set things happen just like every other job, and they’re not being treated the same as every other job. And it’s not OK.”
