Stormy Daniels finds allies in Dane County crowd

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MIDDLETON - Stormy Daniels stepped across a black stage wearing nothing but a red, white and blue-sequined garter on her right thigh, as dollar bills floated around her and Tom Petty belted “she was an American girl raised on promises," taking her place in history for 70-year-old Linda Nelson.

“Look what she has done to America,” the retired teacher said before Daniels’ Friday night performance at Silk Exotic Gentleman’s Club in Middleton. “She has stood up for herself, for her rights, for everything that women are — look at her.”

It was hard to look away.

Daniels, a 39-year-old adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, electrified a packed crowd in the state's most liberal county during the first of two stops she is making this weekend in Wisconsin. She is touring the country, basking in the national spotlight since being paid six figures to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Republican President Donald Trump.

It is this disputed tie to Trump — and Daniels' lawsuit to lift an alleged secrecy pledge — that has sparked an interest Silk co-owner Jon Ferraro characterized as “unheard of” before and made her a champion of women to some of the crowd's newcomers.

But it is also the character Daniels has crafted for the stage since her public legal battle with Trump began. Dancing before an American flag light installation, Daniels sought to cast a spell of patriotism as she ripped off her red-white-and-blue-sequined bustier with its two carefully placed stars.

“It’s a little bit historic,” Will Pommerening, 34, said as he sipped Red Bull and vodka from his post at the bar closest to the stage, just out of the way of the steady stream of dancers leading customers by the hand to and from lap dances. “She absolutely stands up for women — to take on the most powerful man in the free world?"

At the start of the late-night show, before all Daniels' clothes came off, retired Madison bus driver Duane Marxen howled as Daniels whipped open a long red vinyl and blue gingham skirt — the moment Lenny Kravitz roared “American Woman.”

Marxen, 76, arrived at Silk Exotic with a few friends at 5:30 p.m. to get a good table by the stage. And by 11:30 p.m., he was determined to stay until Daniels signed a red baseball cap that read “Make America Horny Again.”

But Marxen's enthusiasm was for Daniels' political implications, not for the show.

“I’m a very progressive Democrat. I’m here to support the cause. I’m here to help Stormy win her lawsuit,” Marxen said, adding he hadn’t been in a strip club in 40 years and was skipping celebrating his 33rd wedding anniversary with his wife in order to show Daniels support. “I hope she knows every freckle and mole on Trump’s body.”

Daniels' visit to Wisconsin came days after Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney, said Daniels didn't deserve the respect "a woman of substance" receives because of Daniels' career choice.

"He is a pig and should immediately be fired. His comments about women and my client are a disgrace," Michael Avenatti, Daniels' attorney, told the Journal Sentinel on Thursday.

Like Nelson, the retired teacher, many of the men and women in Friday's audience attended because they see Daniels as a champion of women.

Mia Morrisette, a 55-year-old social worker in Madison, said she hoped to get an autographed photo of Daniels for her 85-year-old mother, who plans to hang it next to a photo of Pope Francis.

“She’s really spoken the truth and she is a sex-positive, strong woman,” Morrisette said. “I have mixed feelings about the role of pornography and the issues around that, but she has chosen her path in a really brave way and I’m really interested in seeing her and seeing what that feels like — it’s really empowering.”

As if in tribute, Daniels picked two young women perched by the stage’s edge to be the first to experience her up close.

One was Meghan Olson, a 23-year-old bartender in Madison.

“I like her for standing up to the president,” Olson said afterward. “I think she’s really beautiful.”

But for others, it was curiosity. And to the club’s owners — it’s just business.

"Whenever there is something controversial — as long as it's not too crazy — we like to get involved," Ferraro said. "Trump's using stuff to his advantage, and we're taking advantage of what we can. It's business, you know?"

Friday's crowd appeared entirely on Daniels' side; there were no hecklers.

She is scheduled to perform at Silk's Milwaukee club, 11400 W. Silver Spring Road, on Saturday night.

Daniels isn't the first performer at Silk Exotic to draw large crowds due, in part, to celebrity born of sexual encounters with powerful men or being treated poorly by them.

Joslyn James, another adult film actress who had a sexual relationship with disgraced golf legend Tiger Woods, performed at Silk Exotic's Milwaukee location in 2010 while Woods was competing at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan.

"We had a plane fly over the golf course," Ferraro. said. "We had fun with it."

Ferraro also recently hosted Christy Mack, who was viciously beaten and sexually assaulted in 2014 by UFC fighter War Machine, her former boyfriend.

Daniels had performed at one of Ferraro's clubs in 2014. He said he contacted Daniels' agent in January — the day The Wall Street Journal reported Daniels allegedly received a $130,000 payment in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.

"To our surprise, she's still pretty hot, which is pretty crazy," Ferraro said, referring to continued public interest in Daniels.