Porn star Stormy Daniels testified on Tuesday in the ongoing hush money trial against former President Donald Trump.
Daniels said her life descended into “chaos” after her hush-money deal with Trump to stay silent about their alleged sexual encounter was made public.
She told the New York jury that she was ostracised and harassed at her home due to the hush money.
Daniels said: “My husband asking questions, my friends asking questions. It blew my cover, for lack of a better way to explain it.”
She told the New York jury about the alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump and the $130,000 hush money payment she secured when he ran for president in 2016.
Daniels said she was worried he would not pay her if he won the November 2016 election.
The porn star said she honoured the agreement by telling the Wall Street Journal in 2018 that she had not had sex with Trump.
Daniels, 45, said she was determined to keep the incident private after being threatened in a parking lot in 2011 but changed her mind during Trump’s 2016 presidential bid when he faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehaviour.
“My motivation wasn’t money, it was to get the story out,” she said.
Trump, 77, who is the Republican candidate for president again this year, did not react as he watched her testimony from the witness stand.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up the hush money payment to Daniels and denies ever having sex with Daniels.
Daniels said Trump made sexual advances after inviting her to his hotel suite at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. She said he told her, “this is the only way you’re getting out of the trailer park.”
Daniels testified that she grew up as the daughter of a low-income single mother.
Daniels said she “blacked out” despite consuming no drugs or alcohol after Trump prevented her from leaving the room by blocking the door.
She said she woke up on the bed with her clothes off.
“I was staring at the ceiling and didn’t know how I got there; I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there,” Daniels testified.
Daniels said she did not tell Trump to stop. “I didn’t say anything at all,” she said.
She said she left the hotel room quickly afterwards.
She said Trump greeted her at his hotel suite wearing satin pyjamas, adding that she grew annoyed by the former president’s frequent interruptions and asked him: “Are you always this arrogant and pompous?”
She claimed Trump then dared her to spank him with a magazine and she obliged.
“He was much more polite after that,” she said.
Porn Star Stormy Daniels testifies in $130,000 hush money against Donald Trump