Alleged Trump mistress Stormy Daniels takes her act to a South Carolina strip club
GREENVILLE, S.C. - Year two of the Trump presidency began here overnight much like year one had ended: with his alleged ex-mistress smashing people's faces into her bare chest at a strip club between an airport and a cemetery.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels, who once claimed to have slept with Donald Trump not long after he married Melania, performed at 11 p.m. Saturday - the anniversary of his inauguration - and 1 a.m. Sunday here on the outskirts of town.
"HE SAW HER LIVE," the Trophy Club's flier said. "YOU CAN TOO!"
The federal government remained shut down, but Daniels was open for business.
She had received $130,000 in hush money days before the 2016 election as part of a payment arranged by a Trump attorney, according to the Wall Street Journal. And now Daniels was capitalizing on her new notoriety sparked by the revelation, though Trump's attorney had issued a statement in which he and Daniels denied the payment and, on Saturday night, Daniels was largely silent in that regard.
"I'm trying to think of what I can say," said the woman of the hour, sighing and shuddering simultaneously, as if to convey she's been through an ordeal. She was in between performances, signing autographs and taking topless photos with oglers in a corner of the smoky club.
She paused, sat back on a leather couch, pursed her lips.
"It's crazy how one moment can overshadow 15 years of work," she finally said, running her sparkly purple fingernails over some DVDs in front of her. "I directed all these movies. I know it's porn, but they aren't 'one, two, three, f---.' These are serious."
One is a western called "Wanted," and another is its sequel, "Unbridled," whose tagline lacks a double entendre but fits America in 2018: "The stakes were never higher."
Congress can't pass a budget or figure out immigration policy. The administration is talking about war with North Korea. And down in Florida, at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, his supporters were toasting his first year.
A normal Saturday at the Trophy Club brings in 100 to 150 people - and for a while on Saturday it seemed at least double that. "Make America Horny Again," said a big sign outside, a play on Trump's campaign slogan. Inside there was patriotic bunting on the brass railings. Red, white and blue balloons floated above each sticky table.
"I'm an old grandfather, and I seized an opportunity," said Jay Levy, the owner of the Trophy Club. "I'm a liberal. I'm a big-time liberal. ... I'm not here for the scandal. I'm here to make money off the biggest name in adult entertainment this week. Next week it's liable to be someone else."
As Levy tells it, he saw Daniels, an old friend, in the Wall Street Journal last week and tried to catch lightning in a bottle. He called her agency, and within an hour the deal was done. It was the biggest promotional coup in Levy's 22 years running the club, which he views as a family business, a neighborhood joint. His daughter used to work the front door. His wife of 41 years would be in the club's "skybox" that evening to watch the show.
"We're 'Cheers' with tits," said Levy, smoking a filtered Camel in his office earlier Saturday as the Greenville Women's March finished downtown. "I don't know if you can say that or not." He blinked at a reporter taking notes. " 'Cheers' with breasts?"
Trump's tabloid life has fully flowered into a tabloid presidency. Headlines about the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump joked about sexual assault, are now rivaled by accounts of his relationship with a porn star.
Reporters from several major news outlets staked out the strip club for hours and hours this weekend, just in case a porn star said or did something newsworthy. As if she might vault onstage, rip off her corset and - instead of clutching a pole with her pelvis - launch a news conference.
"It's demeaning," said Suzanne Coe, who nevertheless brought a copy of Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" for Daniels to sign as a trivia prize for her bar downtown. "And it's demeaning we have a first lady who posed naked. I don't think you can humiliate America any more."
Enthusiasm in the room was low. Emcees had to impugn patrons' masculinity to goad them to the stage so that Daniels could flip them onto their backs and lower herself onto their noses.
"I think Trump's a real famous guy, and he's been around a s--- ton of people," said Darin Ferguson, an engineer from North Carolina here on business, watching from the safety of a back wall. "And she's getting her 10 minutes of fame from it."
This is not the first time a stripper has entered the political fray. In 1974, Rep. Wilbur Mills, D-Ark., was pulled over by Park Police near the Tidal Basin, and the ex-stripper in his car - stage name: "Fanne Foxe, the Argentine firecracker" - tumbled into the water during a scuffle. The congressman, up for re-election, saw his poll numbers tick up. The Argentine firecracker rebilled herself as the "Tidal Basin Bombshell" and quintupled her performance fee.
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