After things became quiet around Stormy Daniels for a while and after her former lawyer Michael Avenatti sank into more and more bizarre legal battles, the quarrel between the former companions now seems to escalate. Avenatti has filed a lawsuit against Stormy Daniels. Allegedly the porn star owed him several million dollars due to unpaid legal bills.
The litigious and increasingly shady lawyer Michael Avenatti still doesn’t seem to have lost his appetite for legal battles. After being harshly criticized, getting arrested and accused several times in recent months and after being accused by Stormy Daniels of withholding a 300,000 dollar advance from a book contract for her biography, Avenatti is now suing the world-famous actress for several million dollars.
The lawyer, who in his heyday was even traded as a possible presidential candidate, is not only known for his shrewd tricks in court but above all for his effective use of media against his opponents. His former client is not exempt from this strategy. He accuses her of believing that she does not have to pay legal fees because of her status as a celebrity.
He has repeatedly urged Daniels to »fulfill her contractual obligations and pay for the millions in legal fees and costs she has enjoyed for her benefit over the last approximate 19 months« after all, he has been providing »first-class« legal advice for nearly 19 months – at least that’s Avenatti’s opinion.
It seems like a little eternity, but it was barely a year and a half ago that the two made the headlines for the first time. In March 2018, Avenatti filed a lawsuit for Stormy Daniel against Donald Trump and Michael Cohen. At that time it was about a non-disclosure agreement that Daniels had signed in 2016 in the final stage of the election campaign. For 130,000 dollars Trump wanted to buy Daniel’s silence about an affair between the two in 2006. Daniels wanted to lift the confidentiality agreement so that she could talk about the affair in public.
Several lawsuits followed. So far, Stormy Daniels lost all trials against the current president of the United States. Not surprisingly, Daniels fired her lawyer in early 2019 and replaced him with Clark Brewster.
Meanwhile, Avenatti has made headlines with several scandals. For example, an actress accused him of beating her, the sports company Nike sued him for blackmail, and in an attempt to represent a woman who made serious accusations against today’s Constitutional Judge Brett Kavanaugh, he pulled the shorter one and had to put up with criticism that he had damaged the credibility of far more convincing witnesses against Kavanaugh with his appearance. And then the accusation that he embezzled Stormy Daniels’ funds and withheld an advance from the porn star from her book contract.
Now the counterattack. Avenatti claims that Stormy Daniels not only failed to pay her bills but also tried to damage his reputation in the media. Avenatti’s attorney, Tom Warren, said in an interview, »Mr. Avenatti did an enormous amount of high-quality legal work for Ms. Daniels under intense pressure and scrutiny. He made significant personal sacrifices for her benefit. He deserves to be paid by her, not criticized.«
The legal basis for Avenatti’s lawsuit against Stormy Daniels, however, seems relatively thin. He himself had to acknowledge that there had only been a written agreement between the two parties on an advance invoice of 100,000 dollars. Daniels apparently did pay that. In interviews and other public statements in the following period, Avenatti always stated that his costs would be covered by a fund in support of Stormy and crowdfunding. It seems not immediately obvious why he now believes he can claim further compensation from the actress.