At the beginning of January 2018, very few people searched for Stormy Daniels on Pornhub. There were only about 2,500 searches for the Hall of Fame pornstar’s name every day.
But since the Wall Street Journal reported that one of Donald Trump’s lawyers paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair (paywall) on Jan. 12, curiosity about Daniels on Pornhub has spiked.
Pornhub, the 36th-most popular website in the world, reports that just five days after reports of the affair, searches for Daniels reached 2 million in one day. Although Daniels has not consistently maintained that rarefied level of interest, searches for Daniels remain far higher than before her connection to Trump came out.
Every time new information about alleged scandal is released, Daniels sees an enormous jump on Pornhub search spike. On March 7, just after it was reported Daniels would file a civil case against Donald Trump claiming her nondisclosure agreement was invalid, Pornhub says searches for Daniels reached a 2018 high.
The data-crunchers at Pornhub didn’t just analyze the fact that the jump happened, they’ve also looked into whose interest is most piqued. Overall, people in “red states”—parts of the US that tend to vote Republican—are 12% more likely to search for Daniels than people in Democrat-friendly “blue states,” and the spikes are greater in these states when she hits the news cycle.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Daniels acknowledges that the attention has been a financial windfall. She says she is erotic dancing more frequently and charging a higher rate. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an angel,” Daniels told Rolling Stone. “I’m capitalizing on this.”