Stormy Daniels is an American heroine. Whenever I hear her speak or read her interviews, I’m always sort of blown away by her integrity. She was one of only a handful of people adjacent to the entire Trump clownshow who spoke up, did the right thing, sought justice until the end and faced a lot of danger because of it. Now that the grand jury has indicted Donald Trump for multiple counts of white-collar crime, all stemming from the hush-money payments Trump made to Stormy, she’s talking about the years-long journey to get here and how much it cost her and how much it cost the country. Some highlights from her Times interview:

No one is exempt from the law: “Trump is no longer untouchable. A person in power is not exempt from the law. And no matter what your job is, or what your bank account says, you’re held accountable for the things you’ve said and done, and justice is served.”

On Trump’s indictment: “It’s vindication. But it’s bittersweet. He’s done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before. I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it’s also poetic; this p–sy grabbed back. It’s monumental and epic, and I’m proud. The other side of it is that it’s going to continue to divide people and bring them up in arms. He’s already gotten away with inciting a riot, and causing death and destruction. Whatever the outcome is, it’s going to cause violence, and there’s going to be injuries and death. There’s the potential for a lot of good to come from this. But either way, a lot of bad is going to come from it, too.”

The violent threats against her: “The number and the intensity is the same as it was the first time around, but this time it’s straight-up violent. The first time it was ‘gold digger’, ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘liar’ whatever. And this time it’s ‘I’m gonna murder you’. They’re way more violent and graphic.” Is she frightened? “For the first time ever, yeah. And part of me is hesitant to say that because you don’t want blood in the water. It kind of encourages the sharks.” But, she says, “it’s especially scary because Trump himself is inciting violence and encouraging it.”

Trump’s supporters feel emboldened, post-insurrection. “The country is more divided and people are more desperate. I’m not afraid of him, or of the government, but it just takes one crazy supporter who thinks they’re doing God’s work or protecting democracy.”

She’s not afraid of facing Trump in court. “I’ve seen him naked. There’s no way he could be scarier with his clothes on. And after what Avenatti put me through last January I’m not as scared.” (She was cross-examined for hours in court by her former lawyer Michael Avenatti, who was representing himself on charges of cheating her out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in book proceeds; he was jailed for four years.)

She wants to testify against Trump: “I hope that I do have to. I’m not afraid, I have nothing to hide, and I look forward to telling everybody what I know.”

How she sees the NDA & the hush money: “If I hadn’t signed the NDA, and I hadn’t taken the hush money, then he didn’t do anything wrong. He banged another hot chick — which he’s kind of known for doing — and nothing about that is illegal. Signing the NDA and taking the hush money was actually the greatest gift that I gave. Because it’s what made it illegal, which made it possible to actually go after him.”

She couldn’t be shamed: “Can you think of a single time that ‘porn star’ wasn’t put in front of my name? Imagine if I did something else — would ‘school teacher Stormy Daniels, or ‘accountant Stormy Daniels’ have ever been printed? No, it was salacious and used against me and used to ruin my credibility.” But, she says, it also went in her favour. “Because I couldn’t be shamed. I couldn’t be threatened with nude photos — they are everywhere.”

She doesn’t regret speaking up: “Sometimes in the moment, I’m like, ‘What the f*** was I thinking? Was it worth it?’ But I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. If I could go back far enough to where I did go to the hotel that night, I wouldn’t have done that. But . . . coming forward, I would do the same thing again. Because it was the right thing to do.”

[From The Times]

See what I mean? I’m actually tearing up because she’s an amazing person. The fact that she was brave enough to stand up to him, to see this to the end, to be the one to take him down… it’s beautiful and poetic. I’m very worried about her safety too – I hope she’s got good people around her, and I hope she stays in secure locations, because she’s right – the people who support Trump are absolutely unhinged.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.