Adult film star Stormy Daniels spoke to Anderson Cooper about her alleged 2006 affair with Donald Trump in a highly anticipated interview that aired Sunday on "60 Minutes."
>> Watch the full interview here
Here are five things we learned:
1. Daniels said she had sex with Trump one time in 2006. She said the encounter with the then-"Apprentice" host occurred in his hotel suite after she met him at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament.
"He goes, ‘Got an idea, honey bunch. Would you ever consider going on and being a contestant?'" Daniels said. "And I laughed and said, 'NBC's never gonna let, you know, an adult film star be on.' ... 'No, no,' he goes, 'That's why I want you. You're gonna shock a lot of people. You're smart and they won't know what to expect.'"
Later, she said she went to the restroom and found him "on the edge of the bed when I walked out, perched."
"I realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into," Daniels said. "And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go.' And I just felt like maybe – it was sort of – I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone, and I just heard the voice in my head, 'Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.'"
Daniels said that although she was not attracted to Trump, she consented to the sex. They kept in touch about the possibility of appearing on "Celebrity Apprentice" but did not have sex again, she said.
"I thought of it as a business deal," she said.
2. She does not consider herself a "victim." "This is not a #MeToo," she said. "I was not a victim. I've never said I was a victim. I think trying to use me to further someone else's agenda does horrible damage to people who are true victims."
3. Daniels said a man threatened her in 2011 after she made a deal to sell her story to an In Touch sister publication. "I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter – taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, getting all the stuff out – and a guy walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.' And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.' And then he was gone," Daniels said.
She said didn't call the police because she was scared and would "instantly" recognize the man if she ever saw him again.
Brent H. Blakely, an attorney for Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, shot back against Daniels' claim Sunday night in a letter to Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, according to a tweet by Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.
"In truth, 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," the letter said.
Cohen’s lawyer fired back almost immediately after the Daniels interview with this letter saying allegation of goon threatening her was false >> pic.twitter.com/TWH2djrFPq
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 26, 2018
4. Daniels said she signed previous statements denying the affair because she "felt intimidated and honestly bullied."
"And I didn't know what to do, and so I signed it even though I had repeatedly expressed that I wouldn't break the agreement," she said. "But I was not comfortable lying."
When asked whether the previous denials hurt Daniels' credibility, Avenatti responded: "I think there's no question that it calls into question her credibility. I also think that there's no question that when the American people take all of the facts and evidence into consideration, that they are going to conclude that this woman is telling the truth."
5. Daniels stayed mum on whether she has messages, photos or other evidence of the alleged affair. "I can't answer that right now," she said, adding, "My attorney has recommended that I don't discuss those things."
The comment aired days after her attorney tweeted a photo of a mysterious DVD.
"If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth????? #60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta," Avenatti wrote Thursday.
If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” how many words is this worth?????#60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta pic.twitter.com/eCkU0JBZaR
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) March 23, 2018
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Cooper asked Avenatti whether he was bluffing.
"You should ask some of the other people in my career when they've bet on me bluffing," Avenatti said.
Cox Media Group