Forbes reporter Zach Everson joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss how much money Stormy Daniels made from Donald Trump.
READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/05/14/how-much-has-stormy-daniels-made-off-donald-trump/?sh=15dfdadd3807
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READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/05/14/how-much-has-stormy-daniels-made-off-donald-trump/?sh=15dfdadd3807
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NewsTranscript
00:00 As we sit here right now, former President Donald Trump is currently on trial in his criminal hush money case in New York.
00:08 Aside from the former President Donald Trump, his former fixer Michael Cohen, another central character in this story is Stormy Daniels,
00:16 who has been a household name since 2018. But for those viewers who might not remember the beginnings of this story, can you explain who Stormy Daniels is?
00:26 Sure. You know, in some households, she's probably been well known for well before 2018.
00:31 But she is the adult film actress and director and stripper who claims that she had an affair with Donald Trump back in 2011.
00:41 And right at the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, she tried to search.
00:50 She said, this is what the trial is about, accepted a hush, sought a hush money payment on this about the affair from Donald Trump.
00:58 And she's paid one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, whether that payment is a violated campaign finance laws is what the trial is about.
01:08 But then, you know, the hush money didn't ended up not mattering. The whole story came out anyways.
01:13 During the trial, one of Trump's lawyers asked her if this story made her a lot of money. What was her response?
01:19 A very honest answer. She said it has also cost me a lot of money.
01:23 You know, there's all sorts of wild swings that we're seeing with her finances based on what's happened in the aftermath of her alleged affair with Trump.
01:31 So let's dive into it. And your latest piece for Forbes, you divide this story into five sections here.
01:37 So let's start obviously a part one. You just you call it selling the story.
01:43 So you can can you describe this process for us of her selling the story?
01:47 Yeah, she hired an attorney to go around and negotiate with Donald Trump, with Michael Cohen on Trump's behalf, trying to get a payment for the hush money.
01:57 They eventually got one hundred thirty thousand dollars. I believe it took them a couple of times to actually follow up on the payment to get it.
02:04 But after paying her attorney and PR person, she ended up with about ninety six thousand dollars.
02:11 So I want to keep the tally that you wrote for the people at home. You vote ballpark tally.
02:17 One hundred thousand dollars. So now let's move to part two. You entitled Fame is Fortune.
02:22 So this leads us to 2018 when The Wall Street Journal broke this story initially about the payout.
02:27 How did she capitalize on this? She went on a strip club tour, which was called supposedly against her wishes.
02:35 Make America horny again. And, you know, we reported at the time that her booking fee had doubled and her appearances had tripled.
02:44 But when we reached out to her attorney at the time, Michael Avenatti and more him later, he said she actually didn't make that much more money out of it.
02:51 She only brought in about an additional twenty thousand dollars due to more expensive security costs, really cut into the extra income that she was expecting.
03:00 So now for those keeping track at home, we are at one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
03:05 Part three is called courtroom costs. So this is what really tanks that cash pile here. Talk to us about those costs.
03:13 Yeah, she and Trump studio have sued each other and she filed the first lawsuit, which was to get out of the NDA that she had signed.
03:21 And Trump and Cohn agreed to that. But eventually she ended up winning the case.
03:28 Trump appealed. Trump lost the appeal and he ended up owing her attorney's fees that totaled about a little bit less than one hundred thousand dollars.
03:36 However, that was easily offset by the attorney's fees that she ended up owing him.
03:42 Michael Avenatti sued Trump for defamation over Trump's response to a tweet regarding a sketch that Avenatti had posted.
03:52 Daniels testified she thought this was a this lawsuit was a bad idea. It was filed nevertheless.
03:58 And similarly, she lost appealed, lost, appealed, lost, appealed again.
04:03 And each one of those three times she ended up having to pick up Trump's court fees.
04:07 And, you know, Trump can't afford pricier lawyers that she can. So his legal bill for those that whole case ended up totaling six hundred sixty thousand.
04:15 So her net on this was negative five hundred sixty thousand dollars that she owes Trump for his legal fees.
04:22 Now, she has not paid a penny of this. She she tweeted that out.
04:26 I think it was a year or so ago. And she confirmed on the stand that she has not paid a penny on it.
04:31 And Trump is currently going through legal proceedings in Florida trying to force her to to pay up.
04:38 The next hearing on that is later on this month. And so this is when the working relationship between attorney Michael Avenatti,
04:45 as well as Stormy Daniels, really comes to a head here. So talk about how Avenatti ultimately ripped her off.
04:53 Yeah, so this would be the next section when we talk about her book deal.
04:56 She signed a book deal that came with an eight hundred thousand dollar advance from St.
05:01 Martin's Press. Agent took the standard 15 percent.
05:04 And then Avenatti took the not standard three hundred thousand dollars, which she testified was not move.
05:12 It was actually in his court case that came out that he had gone around her back and reached out to the publisher and had the publisher pay him directly.
05:21 And so he took three hundred thousand of that. He ended up repaying her one hundred and fifty thousand.
05:26 But by the time he was arrested and charges on charges of wire fraud and aggravated aggravated identity theft,
05:32 he still order one hundred forty nine thousand dollars. As most people know, Avenatti is currently in prison.
05:37 He's not expected to get out until twenty thirty five. He owes eleven million dollars in restitution to a whole slew of clients.
05:45 Daniels told me that she has not received a dime from him yet,
05:49 and it seems that she's probably going to be waiting for quite some time to to recoup that one hundred forty nine thousand that he swiped.