Adult film actress Stormy Daniels has described her 2006 encounter with Donald Trump in unflattering terms at his criminal trial, testifying she tried not to think about the sex while it took place and feared it would become public.
For several hours Ms Daniels, 45, offered riveting details on the witness stand about her encounter with Mr Trump, 77, and the hush-money deal she reached to stay quiet about it ahead of the 2016 election when he won the top post in White House.
She told jurors that her life descended into "chaos" after the arrangement was made public in 2018, saying she was ostracised and harassed at her home.
"Who do you understand Mr Trump to be referring to as horseface and sleazebag in this post?" prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked her as she displayed a social media post by Mr Trump.
"Me," Ms Daniels replied.
Questioned by Mr Trump's lawyer, Ms Daniels said she hates Mr Trump and hopes he goes to prison if found guilty.
Ms Daniels' testimony prompted Mr Trump's legal team to ask for a mistrial, arguing that her account included details, such as the fact that Mr Trump did not wear a condom, "inflamed" the jury and were irrelevant to the case.
Justice Juan Merchan denied the request.
Mr Trump, the Republican candidate for president again this year, did not react as he watched her testimony.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms Daniels and denies ever having sex with Ms Daniels.
His legal team has suggested that Ms Daniels was angling for a spot on "The Apprentice," a popular reality TV show then hosted by Mr Trump, a New York real estate mogul.
Ms Daniels confirmed that she hoped he would cast her on the show following their encounter.
Asked by Mr Trump's lawyer if she was now making money off her story, she replied: "I've been making money by telling my story about what happened to me."
'Only way you're getting out of the trailer park'
Ms Daniels said Mr Trump made sexual advances after inviting her to his hotel suite at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Ms Daniels testified she grew up as the daughter of a low-income single mother. She said Mr Trump told her: "this is the only way you're getting out of the trailer park".
Ms Daniels said she "blacked out" despite consuming no drugs or alcohol after Mr Trump prevented her from leaving the room by blocking the door. She said she woke up on the bed with her clothes off.
"I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there," Ms Daniels testified.
Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said she did not tell Mr Trump to stop.
"I didn't say anything at all," she said. She said she left the hotel room quickly afterward.
The Republican politician, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, says the trial is an attempt to hobble his attempt to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the 5 November election.
Wearing a black outfit and black glasses, Ms Daniels testified that she worked in strip clubs and pornography after a childhood in which her mother was often gone for days at a time.
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Satin pyjamas and a spanking
She said Mr Trump greeted her at his hotel suite wearing satin pyjamas.
She said she grew annoyed by Mr Trump's frequent interruptions and asked him: "Are you always this arrogant and pompous?"
Mr Trump then dared Ms Daniels to spank him with a magazine and she obliged. "He was much more polite after that," she said.
"That's bulls**t," Mr Trump appeared to say as he watched from the defendant's table.
The alleged encounter took place while Mr Trump was married to his current wife Melania.
Ms Daniels said she confided in only a few people about the sex.
She said she saw Mr Trump at public events on several occasions in the years that followed, but then fell out of touch with him after he did not put her on The Apprentice.
Ms Daniels said she was determined to keep the incident private after being threatened in a parking lot in 2011 but changed her mind during Mr Trump's 2016 presidential bid, when he faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehaviour.
"My motivation wasn't money, it was to get the story out," she said.
She ultimately negotiated a $130,000 payment with Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen.
She said she worried Mr Trump would not pay her if he won the November 2016 election.
Jurors saw documents that showed she cancelled the deal in mid-October but later revived it.
Prosecutors say Mr Trump falsified business records to obscure the fact that he reimbursed Mr Cohen for the payment.
They say that amounts to an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of people with potentially damaging information.
The case is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Mr Trump faces, but it is the only one certain to go to trial before the election.
The other cases charge Mr Trump with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to all three.
