Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Entertainment
Stephen Battaglio

Stormy Daniels brings '60 Minutes' its biggest audience since the Obamas were on in 2008

The highly anticipated "60 Minutes" interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels on Sunday, during which she discussed President Trump, was watched by 21.3 million viewers, the CBS program's largest audience since 2008.

Data from Nielsen showed that was most viewers an episode of the newsmagazine has had since 24.5 million people watched Barack and Michelle Obama give their first post-election interview on the show on Nov. 16, 2008.

In recent weeks, "60 Minutes" has been drawing about 10 million viewers.

In Sunday's sit-down with correspondent Anderson Cooper, Daniels described the affair she says she had with Trump in 2006. She also said she was threatened with physical harm in 2011 if she went public with her story.

Daniels said that a few weeks after Trump's attorney Michael Cohen learned that she had shared her story with In Touch magazine, a stranger approached her and her young daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot, told her to "leave Trump alone" and delivered a warning.

"That's a beautiful little girl," she said the man told her. "It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom."

In Touch did not publish Daniels' story until January of this year, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen had arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 just before the November 2016 presidential election in return for her silence.

Daniels has denied the affair in the past. She told Cooper that she was intimidated into signing nondisclosure agreements about the liaison.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.