Porn star Stormy Daniels has hit out at the way she was treated in court, slamming Donald Trump's female defence lawyer for "slut shaming" her.
As the adult film icon tries to move on from the courtroom drama where she played a pivotal role in challenging the once most powerful man on Earth, she looks back at the tough times she faced while testifying.
Stormy reveals her shock at the treatment dished out by Trump's attorney Susan Necheles who attempted to discredit her testimony by bringing up her adult film career, suggesting it meant she had fabricated her account of an affair with the ex-president.
READ MORE: Stormy Daniels' 5 bombshells after Trump verdict – death threats to 'I'm not a prostitute'
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"How bad to have a woman get up there and try to slut shame a woman," she states. "I can't imagine that anyone else would say otherwise. She actually had the nerve to argue because what I do makes my testimony less valuable. It was both insulting and demeaning."
Stormy received a payout of £102,000 from Trump's then-attorney on behalf of his boss, during the 2016 election campaign. The payment was intended to stop her from going public with bombshell claims that she had slept with Trump in 2006, cheating on his wife Melania.
Throughout her testimony, Necheles aimed to portray Stormy as motivated by animosity and greed, leading to increasingly tense confrontations. The porn actress was accused by Trump's legal eagle of attempting to shake down her client with the hush-money agreement, reports the Mirror.
"False," Stormy shot back. "That's what you did, right? " Necheles fired off. "False," she repeated firmly. At one stage, Necheles grilled Stormy on her adult film career. "You have a lot of experience of making phony stories about sex appear to be real," Necheles charged.
"Wow," Stormy hit back after a beat. "That's not how I would put it. The sex in the films is very much real, just like what happened to me in that room."
Nowadays, Stormy is battling public perception over her lawsuit against Trump. She insists: "I wasn't the prosecution. I can't tell you how many tweets I get a day telling me that I should drop the case. It was never my case to drop. It was brought by New York State, not me. Like, do I look like I'm in charge here?"
In the dramatic six-week trial, Stormy, aged 45, took the stand and didn't hold back, spilling salacious details of her one-night stand with Trump at a 2006 celebrity golf event. Her bombshell testimony played a key role in nailing Trump for his supposed extramarital escapades.
Central to his spectacular fall was the hush money totalling $130,000 (£102,000) paid to Stormy by Trump's then-legal eagle, Cohen. Cohen, alongside Trump, now 77, got caught up in an illicit plot to doctor financial records to disguise the pay-off as business expenses, landing Trump with a potential four-year stretch behind bars. He's set for sentencing on July 11.
However, as Stormy spends time back on her ranch reunited with her family and her beloved horse Leo, she has taken immense comfort from the evidence she gave despite how tough it was. She shares: "My life now is my husband, daughter and competing with my horse, Leo.
"I'd like to bid for mainstream acting success, and I'm filming a thriller movie and a comedy series. It is thankfully a world away from the courtroom. It was so intimidating being in front of the jurors and lawyers all looking at me, but I'm glad the stuff I wanted came out in court. I wanted to prove I'd been telling the truth the entire time.
"I was telling the truth that I was not paid for sex. It was not a prostitution job. I was not an escort. I was not a prostitute. It was consensual.
"That was one of the biggest things for me, that I'm not a liar. All I did was give the REAL truth to the questions I was asked. Think about that for a moment. You had to hear me talk about it. I had to live it."
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