Adult film actress Stormy Daniels said Thursday that she never trusted her disgraced former attorney Michael Avenatti, who is now in prison, claiming on "The View" that she had "no choice" but to hire him.
Daniels was asked about Avenatti, who initially represented her in her litigation against Donald Trump that made her a household name in 2018.
"So for a while, he was kind of seen like a liberal darling, someone who was championing your cause, supporting you, but when did you realize that something wasn’t right with this guy?" co-host Sara Haines asked.
Daniels said she knew "from the beginning," and said she was "never alone with him." She told the show's co-hosts to watch her face in the new documentary "Stormy" when the two interact, claiming she wasn't buying any of this "bull." Avenatti was eventually convicted of fraud and identity theft for stealing $300,000 from Daniels.
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Co-host Joy Behar asked Daniels, "why did you use him in the first place?"
"Because I didn't have a choice," Daniels responded. "No one would touch my case at all because either they didn't want to be associated with the adult film business or they didn't want to go against Trump."
Daniels also said in some cases, she couldn't afford it.
"And Michael did listen, he did believe me, he had his own motives, but he did believe me. He only took $100," she continued.
She said Avenatti was a "brilliant man," but lamented that he "chose to use his powers for evil" before making a crude remark about his imprisonment.
"That is so sad," she said. "Because he has more power than I could ever hope to have, because he is a White man and he didn't show his [private parts] on camera. But he's probably showing it somewhere else now."
The disgraced lawyer became popular in the liberal media, as he made hundreds of appearances on CNN, MSNBC and elsewhere after taking on Daniels as a client, Fox News Digital previously reported. At one point, Daniels and Avenatti posed for a Vogue photo shoot.
"Daniels clearly trusts and relies on Avenatti, but she also treats him like a lovable, well-meaning stepbrother who forgot to take his Ritalin," reporter Amy Chozick wrote in the Vogue feature.
"The View" co-host Ana Navarro compared Avenatti to the "Holy Spirit" during an episode of the show in 2018. At one point, Avenatti even served as a "guest co-host" for the ABC gabfest, and he flirted with a Democratic presidential run.
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"Lately to me, you're like the Holy Spirit," she said. "You are all places at all times. Right? I do, I see you all over cable news."
Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2022 for cheating four former clients out of millions of dollars and trying to obstruct the IRS from collecting payroll taxes from a coffee shop that he owned.
He was also already serving a five-year prison sentence for stealing $300,000 from Daniels and attempting to extort footwear manufacturer Nike out of $25 million.
Avenatti appeared across all the major cable news networks over 250 times between February 2018 and 2019, according to the Media Research Center.
Fox News' Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
