Stormy Daniels visits a restaurant in downtown New Orleans in 2009. In September, she’ll perform at a Portland strip club.
It looks like Stormy Daniels is blowing into town.
The marquee at a Portland adult nightclub says the porn star – who alleges she’s had sex with President Trump – will be appearing for two days in September.
Mike Collins, manager of PT’s Showclub on Riverside Street, said Friday night that tickets for the shows on Sept. 5 and 6 will cost $20, double the normal admission price of $10. He said Daniels will be doing two shows each night.
“She’s actually been booked all the way through next year,” he said, “but a couple of dates opened up and we were able to get in there and secure them right away.”
Daniels says she had sex with Trump in 2006, when he was married. Trump has denied it. Before the election, she was paid $130,000 to stay silent in a deal handled by Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. She is now suing to invalidate the nondisclosure agreement.
She’s also suing the president for defamation over a tweet he sent dismissing Daniels’ account of a man she said threatened her to keep quiet about the alleged relationship with Trump.
The payment to Daniels is part of a federal investigation that included a raid in April in which agents seized records at Cohen’s residences and office. Among the questions for investigators is whether the payments to Daniels and another woman, former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal, should have been reported under campaign finance law because they were made to limit damage to Trump’s presidential campaign.
Stormy Daniels received $130,000 days before the 2016 election as part of a payment arranged by a Trump attorney.
When she’s not filing lawsuits that threaten the presidency, Daniels is performing at strip clubs across the country. Her tour, which capitalizes on Trump’s campaign theme with a title of “Making America Horny Again,” began in January at a South Carolina strip club, according to numerous media accounts.
Collins said he doesn’t know how political Daniels gets during the show, but he’s seen photos “and she does have some costuming where she dresses in red, white and blue and some patriotic stuff. I don’t know if she addresses the president or anything like that.”
Collins said he often brings in acts that are “outside the box” to widen the club’s audience.
“We’re certainly not taking sides,” he said. “This is all about entertainment. It’s not about politics at all. It’s her star power and the draw.”
An adult film industry director and executive, Daniels has embraced her adult entertainment career, which includes writing and directing all of her own movies for the last 10 years. Her clash with Trump has landed her a “60 Minutes” interview and a story in Rolling Stone with a headline calling Daniels “the Hero America Needs.”
Last week, Daniels had a high-profile but brief run-in with the law in Ohio that started with a brush with undercover officers in the audience.
Daniels was charged with illegal touching of customers, who were actually undercover police officers. The charges were dropped because Daniels was not a regular performer at the club, so the law prohibiting physical contact between strippers and customers did not apply.
Some of her tour events have been canceled, most recently this week for a performance scheduled Thursday at a West Columbia strip club, because her tour bus broke down.
PT’s Showclub, which was previously called Mark’s Showplace, is one of the few strip clubs in Maine. None of the patrons who were approached outside the club Friday night and asked to comment would give their names.
Many of them were from Canada, in town to attend auto races. One said he didn’t know who Stormy Daniels was, until it was explained to him and he said he had heard about her on the news.
Another Canadian, a former broadcast producer turned commercial fisherman, didn’t have that problem. He knew who Daniels was, but said he wouldn’t go see her because “all these (trade) deals are a nightmare.”
A Portland man wasn’t sure if he would attend, but said the marquis outside the strip club “caught my interest.”
A man who has just moved to Portland from Tampa (“the strip capital of the world”) said he would probably attend “just for laughs and giggles.”
That’s music to Collins’ ears.
“We’re really excited to bring Stormy to Portland,” the club’s manager said, “and we hope everybody comes out.”
Noel K. Gallagher can be reached at 791-6387 or at:
Twitter: noelinmaine
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