Stormy Daniels, the porn star who made headlines for allegedly having an extramarital affair with President Donald Trump, will attend this year's Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, where she has been nominated for several awards.
Daniels, who works with the adult film company Wicked Pictures, is nominated for awards for performance, screenplay and directing in this year's expo. The 38-year-old's real name is Stephanie Clifford, and she has been a well-known star in the porn industry for years. During that time, she won numerous awards for performing in and directing pornographic films.
In 2004, for example, she won the Adult Video News award for best new starlet, and in 2016 she won the XBIZ award for director of the year.
Similar to Trump, she once used her stardom to make a brief foray into politics. In 2009, a group of fans attempted to recruit Daniels to run for a U.S. Senate seat in her native Louisiana. She registered as a Republican, made a listening tour and claimed to be seriously considering a run for office.
But her political career was cut short after she was arrested on a domestic violence charge for allegedly hitting her husband during a dispute over laundry and unpaid household bills. Her political adviser at the time also claimed his vehicle had been blown up outside of his apartment in downtown New Orleans. The incidents lent an air of drama to an already unique moment in the spotlight.
After it became clear that she would not run for office, Daniels continued to work in the porn industry and win awards. She has been a regular at the Adult Entertainment Expo over the years. But this year she is expected to receive extra attention. The website PornHub's data analytics blog revealed that online searches for Daniels shot up by 375 percent after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in hush money to deny she had an affair with Trump in 2006. She and Trump both denied the affair, which had been reported on prior to the Journal's piece.
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Cristina Maza is an award-winning journalist who has reported from countries such as Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, India, Lithuania, Serbia, and Turkey. ... Read more
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