I have to be honest from the jump: I can’t recall ever reading a book billed as a “tell-all.” That’s not to cast judgment on the entire genre — it’s just never really caught my attention. But I’m writing this as I stare at a backlog of books in my bedroom, and they’re all side-eyeing me because I’ve yet to get to them. (I will read every one of you, my babies, I promise. Someday.)
That being said, with everything going on in the news, when I found out that Stormy Daniels — the porn director/writer/performer at the center of a controversy which exposed some of President Trump’s wrongdoings — had written a memoir, I was terribly curious. And not entirely in a voyeuristic sense. I’d been following Daniels’s witty and fiery Twitter feed for a hot minute, so I knew she was quick with a zinger. But when I found out she casually came out as bi on social media, I was curious to see if it came up in her memoir.
Nope...I like to fuck men and women. It's called bisexual.
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) January 16, 2019
Before I get too far into this review, I should note this review will contain SPOILERS for Full Disclosure (2018). And since Daniels lived a stormy (hehe) life way before her fling with the notorious reality-star-turned-president, it should go without saying that there are some obviously adult themes.
Full Disclosure starts off in the midst of the media firestorm Daniels became embroiled in over the past few years. It begins with her receiving the key to the city from the mayor of West Hollywood in honor of Stormy Daniels Day, flanked by bodyguards and hounded by lurid questions from her audience. With a Walk the Line-esque framework, Daniels considers the makings of her life that brought her, impossibly, to this moment. She explores where she would likely have ended up if not for her drive, and what she hopes will happen next — on the macro and micro levels of her life.
The first thing that stands out about the memoir is Daniels is a talented writer. I know, these types of books often get assigned a ghostwriter, but it’s clear that Daniels:
- 1. Has a distinctive voice (notable in her interviews and writings elsewhere).
- 2. Has been writing for much of her life (including writing her own screenplays with Wicked Pictures).
- 3. Was working on this memoir way before the scandal with the 45th President entered the picture.
Daniels’s writing tone is at turns lovably brash, brazen, and whip-smart, but always hilarious. I found myself chuckling a lot more than I expected to — so much so that I frightened my cat with barks of laughter. Not only that, but due to Daniels’s photographic memory, she often paints a vivid picture (often too vivid for the faint-of-heart) of events in her life that adds the ring of truth to them. Full Disclosure feels authentic from top to bottom and reads like a breeze.
Daniels’s childhood starts off in a place of squalor in the American South, as a survivor of sexual assault at the hands of a friend’s neighbor as well as neglect and abuse from her parents. These passages are difficult enough to read, let alone for one person to overcome the odds. But Daniels finds solace and respite in her love of horses, buying one at a young age when her drunk stepfather blacks out while handing over his bonus for her to buy her own birthday present. It’s this type of quick thinking that helps serve Daniels throughout her life.
But the early chapters are not all a look at her destitute beginnings. Daniels details not only the early days in her feature dancing career joining touring rock bands, but also her first crush on a woman as well as her attractions to other women in the first strip club she worked at. Beyond her bisexuality, it’s clear Daniels is not just sex-positive, but sex-worker positive in talking about working with women throughout her time as a stripper, then moving into the porn industry. Sure, there are some women who betrayed her along the way, but they are written about with no more venom than any man who dared to do the same.
Daniels reveals she had been working on her memoir for the last decade, and it shows in what she chooses to divulge about in her adventurous life. Granted, there are wild moments on stage and on tour, but what stood out to me was her focus on falling in love with her (now ex) husband and her pregnancy. These passages alternate between tender and heartbreaking, fleshing out Daniels as far more than the bimbo some media outlets would like the public to assume she is.
That said, there are sections that I’m not on board with. I get that Daniels is giving in to the demand to describe the night she had with the former face of The Apprentice, but there are moments when she describes the sexual encounter which seems to cross the line from humiliating to body-shaming. There were surely enough horrors about the fateful night that’ll stick with me to the end of my days. And while I know Daniels is describing the intercourse as consensual, it’s clear that she felt coerced and did not think she would get out of that bedroom with a good business opportunity without a trade. My heart went out to her while reading about this battle of attrition as well as going through the wringer for getting her truth out to the public.
Full Disclosure is a helluva read from a bi woman going through a rags-to-riches narrative of her own making — a Horatio Alger story but without an outside form of luck intervening, only Daniels’s ambition, drive, and resourcefulness. While Daniels is still a controversial figure, I enjoyed her memoir, and I, for one, believe her.
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