Did TV make Donald Trump scared of sharks? ‘Porn star mistress’ reveals surprising claim
Did television make US President Donald Trump scared of sharks? Newly emerged remarks from the porn star who claims to have slept with him suggest that may be the case.
Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the name of Stormy Daniels, told In Touch in 2011 that she slept with Trump. Now the site has repeated those claims in the full interview, along with previously unpublished, and deeply bizarre, remarks about his phobia of sharks.
“He was like, ‘I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die,’” she said. “He was like obsessed. It’s so strange, I know.”
Clifford claims that Trump invited her to his hotel room at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada in 2006. When she arrived there, she said, he was wearing “pyjama pants” and watching the Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week on television.
“The strangest thing about that night – this was the best thing ever,” Clifford said, “You could see the television from the little dining room table and he was watching Shark Week and he was watching a special about the USS something and it sank and it was like the worst shark attack in history. He is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks.”
The remarks suggest that Trump – who has famously been caught repeating Fox News headlines on Twitter minutes after they air – may have developed his revulsion towards sharks because he watched too many documentaries about them.
Donald Trump has denied an affair with Clifford. His personal lawyer, Michael Clifford, said in a statement to the New York Daily News: “These rumours have circulated time and again since 2011. President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence as has Ms. Daniels.”
But he has been quite open about his fear of fanged fishes.
Interestingly, while Clifford told the site about Trump’s phobia in 2011, he himself did not publicly admit this until 2013.
The US averages just 19 shark attacks each year and one fatal shark-attack every two years, according to National Geographic. Meanwhile, in the coastal US states alone, lightning strikes and kills more than 37 people each year.
Upon hearing of Trump’s comment, the Discovery Channel on Friday told US media, Mashable, that the safety and conservation of sharks is the most important message of Shark Week.
They added that the programme “celebrates the wonder of these majestic creatures and their critical importance to the ecosystem,” Mashable reported.
Clifford also describes in the interview Trump’s steadfast refusal to drink alcohol, and his fascination with magazine covers, saying “he just kept talking about this magazine that he was on the cover of, like, ‘Look at this magazine, don’t I look great on the cover?’”
The adult actress described her sexual encounters with the businessman as “nothing crazy” and “textbook generic.”
Clifford told the magazine, “he definitely seemed smitten after that. He was like, ‘I wanna see you again, when can I see you again?’”
Throughout the encounters, Clifford said, Trump did not mention his wife, Melania, whom he had married in 2005 and who gave birth to their son Barron in 2006.
“At the time, I didn’t think that much about it,” Clifford said. “But now that I have a baby that’s the same age that his was at the time, I’m like, ‘Wow, what a d***.’”
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that a Trump Organisation lawyer, Michael Cohen, oversaw a US$130,000 (HK$1 million) payment to Clifford so that she would not discuss the encounter.
Cohen later produced an email in which Clifford apparently denied a “sexual and/or romantic affair” and receipt of “hush money”.
