Thunder and Lightning: My Night With Stormy Daniels, ‘American Hero’ and the Woman Who Could Topple Trump

The woman whose testimony could send President Trump to prison celebrated her 45th birthday and the release day of her documentary, “Stormy,” at Three Dollar Bill, a venue at East Williamsburg better known for pulsing beats and late-night mistakes.Those who came to see “Stormy” and Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, arrived early. They were eager to share their admiration for the adult film actress whose non-disclosure agreement with Mr. Trump has become the linchpin of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against the former president. The Sun spoke with a man who described himself as a “retired Wall Street executive,” Sal Zambito. He’d brought a bouquet of tulips for Ms. Clifford and relates how he met her and grew to “respect her” when she hosted a reality dating show on which he was a participant. A contestant, Sal Zambito, on a reality show hosted by Stormy Daniels, March 18, 2024. A.R. Hoffman/The New York Sun.Mr. Zambito, whose handle on Instagram is @BigSalTV, calls her the “queen of resilience.” He did not find love on the program, though, and was eliminated after four episodes. When asked what is next for him, he expresses the hope that he might appear on another season of Ms. Clifford’s show. When Mr. Zambito wants something, he says, “I put it on my list, and it gets done.” Also waiting for the doors to open was a playwright, Liz Linkewitz. Wearing a pink jacket and rainbow-chrome shoes — “I’m bisexual and polyamorous,” she explains — Ms. Linkewitz shares that she is working on a play called “Mistresses” that takes as its subject the history of presidential affairs. The list will comprise Ms. Clifford, whom Ms. Linkewitz calls an “American hero” who is suffering because of “hate against sex workers.”That stream of admiration is briefly diverted by the sudden appearance of Ms. Clifford herself, alighting from a car the same color as her outfit, a black, skin-tight dress. She is accompanied by her fourth husband, a fellow adult film star, Russell Barrett, who goes by Barrett Blade. He is toting a camera, capturing footage of the New York premiere of “Stormy,” possibly for a sequel. Attendees take their seats for the screening of ‘Stormy,’ from Peacock. A.R. Hoffman An audience of about 30 takes their seats on folding chairs arrayed on the dance floor as “Stormy” — available to stream on Peacock — is streamed with only an occasional technical difficulty. The documentary was initially the project of a journalist, Denver Nicks, who subsequently began an affair with Ms. Clifford, necessitating a change in personnel. It covers her hardscrabble beginnings at Baton Rouge and her bare-knuckled rise through porn’s seedy splendor.An alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump at Lake Tahoe — she describes it as “awful” but insists that it was not rape and that she did not protest — led years later to the $130,000 payment and non-disclosure agreement brokered by Mr. Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, Michael Cohen.A publicity-seeking attorney, Michael Avenatti, comes to represent Ms. Clifford. He brings a disastrous defamation case on her behalf against Mr. Trump, to whom she now owes more than $600,000. He then forges her signature and steals most of her book advance. Avenatti is in prison, on unrelated charges, and will be for a long while.“Stormy” follows its protagonist on her “Make America Horny Again” tour, which was launched on the first anniversary of Mr. Trump taking the oath of office. The film is unlikely to sway the uncommitted, on either side — at Three Dollar Bill, at least, Ms. Clifford is hailed as something akin to a Joan of Arc of the Resistance. She repeats her characterization of Mr. Trump as an “orange hobgoblin.” At a question-and-answer session after the screening, Ms. Clifford — who could well take the stand next month to testify against Mr. Trump — describes her outlook as “hopeless.” She despairs that Mr. Trump is “too powerful and too wealthy” to see the inside of a jail cell. “I’m out of f—s,” she sighs. There are moments of levity, though, for the entrepreneurial Ms. Clifford, who shares that she nicknamed her two breasts, augmented before the turn of the millennium, as “thunder and lightning.” A pall descends, though, when one audience member asks if she thinks Mr. Trump will triumph in November. Ms. Clifford pauses and then says, “I think he will.”

Thunder and Lightning: My Night With Stormy Daniels, ‘American Hero’ and the Woman Who Could Topple Trump

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