Stormy Daniels explains in her new book how 2 Michael Cohen stories completely changed her outlook toward her infamous nondisclosure agreement
- Two stories about President Donald Trump's former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen led porn star Stormy Daniels to change her views about honoring the nondisclosure agreement they inked prior to the 2016 presidential election.
- Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to stay silent about her allegation of a 2006 affair with Trump.
- Daniels explained why the stories changed her mind in her upcoming book, "Full Disclosure."
Porn star Stormy Daniels continued to abide by the nondisclosure agreement she inked with President Donald Trump's former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen in the weeks that followed The Wall Street Journal's bombshell January revelation of the deal.
But she began reconsidering that strategy upon reading a pair of February stories regarding Cohen - who facilitated the $130,000 hush money agreement just prior to the 2016 presidential election in an effort to silence her from speaking about her allegation of a 2006 affair with Trump - as she explained in her upcoming book "Full Disclosure."
Daniels wrote in her book, which is set to be released Tuesday and was obtained by Business Insider, that she "nearly spit out her coffee" when she read a Daily Beast story headlined "Trump's Lawyer Michael Cohen Is Shopping a Book About The First Family, Stormy Daniels, and Russia."
"This fool had the nerve to draw up an NDA saying that Trump and I were supposed to forget each other existed, and now he was pitching publishers using my goddamn name?" Daniels wrote.
Publishers ultimately pulled the plug on Cohen's book proposal, as The Daily Beast later reported, amid his legal troubles. The Daniels hush-money payment led to Cohen's conviction on a number of federal charges in August, including two related to campaign-finance violations he said he committed at Trump's direction.
"This dim bulb Cohen was out there selling a book on my name, but I was the only person taking the NDA seriously?" Daniels wrote. "I can't comment, profit, or defend myself?"
Soon after, Cohen told The New York Times he paid Daniels out of his own pocket.
"It was a big day for Cohen flapping his gums," Daniels wrote. "Could he really do this and not invalidate the NDA?"
She wrote that the pair of stories led to her deciding that she had enough of "being bullied" and "being the only one doing what I said I was going to do."
At the same time, she was worried that her then-attorney, Keith Davidson, was actually working to benefit Cohen and Trump, not her.
After contacting Davidson to alert him that she believed Cohen had violated the contract, Daniels wrote the attorney "did nothing."
Daniels soon sought out a new attorney, hiring Michael Avenatti. She would then sue Trump and Cohen to invalidate the hush agreement. In the months that followed, she gave interviews about the alleged affair to ABC's "The View" and CBS's "60 Minutes."
Avenatti, meanwhile, waged a media-intensive battle against Trump and Cohen.
Now, in response to Daniels' lawsuit, Trump and Cohen say they won't enforce the original agreement.