WASHINGTON –– Porn actress Stormy Daniels said she had sex with Donald Trump in 2006, recanting a statement denying the affair that Trump’s personal lawyer issued under her name in January.

Daniels, in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” said she signed the denial, after the Wall Street Journal reported she’d been paid $130,000 a month before the 2016 election to remain silent, because she believed that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, would make her “life hell in many different ways.”

She said she and her young daughter were physically threatened by an unidentified man in Las Vegas in 2011 if she revealed the affair. Earlier that year, Cohen threatened to sue In Touch magazine if it published an interview with Daniels in which she detailed the relationship, according to “60 Minutes.”

“I was concerned for my family and their safety,” she said.

Cohen and the White House declined to comment for the “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, declined to answer questions about whether she had any text messages or videos documenting the relationship.

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Daniels said she signed a nondisclosure agreement drawn up by Cohen in 2016 in part because she was afraid of physical harm, citing the 2011 threat.

“A guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story’,” she said. “And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”

In Touch published its 2011 interview with Daniels in January, including details of the alleged affair with Trump, after the Wall Street Journal revealed the $130,000 payment. Trump has denied the affair through his lawyers. The White House has declined to answer most questions about the alleged affair.

Cohen has said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket and wasn’t reimbursed by the Trump Organization, the president’s company, or by his campaign. He has not said whether the president personally reimbursed him.

Daniels sued in California state court to be released from the nondisclosure agreement, in part because she says Trump never signed it. Cohen and the president’s lawyers have threatened to claim as much as $20 million in damages from Daniels for violating the agreement and have sought to have the suit moved to federal court.

Daniels has offered to return the $130,000, and the advocacy group Common Cause has sued Cohen and the president, claiming that the payment violated campaign finance law.

Daniels said that she met Trump in 2006 and agreed to have dinner in his hotel room, where the two later had sex.

In a separate interview last week on CNN, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, said she had a 10-month affair with Trump that also began in 2006, the year Trump’s wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. McDougal said she was in love with Trump but broke off the relationship after feeling guilty because he was married.


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