Stormy depicts porn star heroism

Stormy Daniels isn’t just a porn star. At the time news broke of her affair with Donald Trump, she was a businesswoman, writer and a prolific director in the adult entertainment industry — talk about smashing the glass ceiling. According to Daniels, she was even complimented by Trump for her towering intellect the night they first met in his hotel room. 

All of this feminist heroism — and more — was revealed in Daniels’s new documentary Stormy, which was released on Peacock Monday morning. The documentary chronicles Daniels’s affair with Trump, the hush money payments made during the 2016 election and life after becoming infamous. The audience is invited to laugh, cry and seek vengeance alongside America’s most famous porn star as she battles legal fees, a fraudulent lawyer and online hate. The film is loaded with cameos from celebrities, commentary from liberal pundits and, most stunningly of all, scenes from Daniels’s striptease act. 

Cockburn couldn’t help but sympathize with the porn star who says she feared for her life before and after breaking her silence. At one point, things were so bad that she drew up her last will. Daniels said that she originally accepted the hush money and signed the non-disclosure agreement to create a “paper trail and money trail linking me to Donald Trump so that he could not have me killed.” 

Daniels’s fear was rekindled when Trump was indicted last year for hush money payments. “When the indictment happened, Michael Cohen actually texted me and expressed extreme fear for my safety,” she said. Since then, Daniels has received several death threats — and her horse was even shot with rubber bullets. 

Yet, in spite of her fear, Stormy refused to back down. Thanks to the documentary, Cockburn now realizes how strong she is. Instead of fading into the background, she decided to kick up her “Make America Horny Again” strip tour. “If you drive an ice cream truck, and you don’t drive your ice cream truck the week of the heatwave, you’re an idiot,” she said. While her shows used to attract straight, white men, they are now filled with women, gay couples and immigrants who hail her as a hero. “There are very often women at Stormy’s strip club performances who will come up while she’s dancing,” said Denver Nicks, a journalist who worked on the documentary. “And instead of putting a dollar in her G-string will put it in her hand, ‘Here I respect you.’”

The documentary is also very much a family drama. It depicts Daniels’s unraveling marriage with her third husband, Glendon Crain, in part due to her brief affair with Nicks. This made Cockburn flash back to when he had his fortune told by Daniels in December 2022:

At first, Stormy had appeared a touch standoffish upon noticing your intrepid reporter in the lobby. “Dressed down like that you are the spitting image of my ex-husband… and he was a journalist too,” she explains. “I did a double take.”

Crain, a mutton-chopped musician and porn star, filed for divorce in 2018 claiming that Daniels cheated on him. Crain also alleged that Daniels wanted to take their daughter on her strip club tour. A scene of a distraught Daniels looking for her daughter after Crain had removed her from the family home had Cockburn tearing up. 

Although Daniels owes Trump over $100,000 and is admittedly tired of fighting, things are on the up-and-up for the porn star. Daniels appears to have made amends with Crain, according to the documentary, and has been married to fellow porn star Barrett Blade since 2022. She’s also prepared to appear in court against Trump. Cockburn smells a sequel…