Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels is scheduled to visit downtown Washington, D.C., on Monday night, bringing her strip show to the Cloakroom, a nightclub located about midway between the Capitol and the White House.
It's not the first time Daniels has promised to perform in Washington, near the high-profile subject of her alleged 2006 affair and the man she has sued, first to void their hush agreement and then for defamation: President Donald Trump. A much anticipated June visit was canceled because of a "scheduling conflict," according to Cloakroom owner Andre de Moya, who gave a brief tour of his club on a recent weekday night.
Daniels is scheduled to be here for the club's "Official Grand Opening." Four years ago, the Cloakroom's building - then on one of K Street's seedier blocks - collapsed, sending customers and nearly nude performers into the streets, and the club shut down. It reopened this spring and now sits among high-priced condominiums and trendy restaurants.
A touch of class appears to be what de Moya is banking on. The club website makes no mention of the "Make America Horny Again" tour that Daniels launched in January in South Carolina, days after news reports surfaced that Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to silence her during the 2016 presidential campaign - an attempt to keep her from talking about her alleged relationship with Trump. (Trump has acknowledged the payment but has denied the affair.) For its Washington, D.C., audience, the Cloakroom teases a show more tastefully titled "All Things Revealed."
Which is just what audiences anticipate from a woman who has made her living performing, writing and directing pornographic films. De Moya was coy, though, about what to expect when Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, shows up to perform two shows each night on Monday and Tuesday.
De Moya declined to say whether there would be any special arrangements when the country's most polarizing pole dancer takes the stage. It would be like "any old night," he said, but they "just happen to have Stormy Daniels here."
Though "here," as de Moya added, is "pretty close to the White House."
Tickets for the shows have been on sale on the club's website: general admission is $50 for entry to the main floor, and comfy leather VIP-level seating is $100. As for the 12-guest skyboxes, which offer aerial views of dancers turning somersaults on poles below? For $3,500 per show, they come with added enticements such as bottles of champagne, truffle popcorn and "Dark and Stormy Shots."
The Cloakroom - which bills itself as a multilevel adult entertainment venue - is, by all appearances, more upscale than the last place Daniels performed when she visited the area, at Fantasies Nightclub and Sports Bar in Baltimore, a squat concrete building about 15 minutes from the airport.
The cover charge at that event in April was $15 for early arrivals. The menu offered deep-fried fish nuggets and chicken wings served with "G-string onion straws." And while the Cloakroom has scheduled a 6 p.m. Daniels performance to accommodate summer work hours, on her first night in Baltimore, Daniels didn't appear onstage until after 10:30 p.m.
A succession of house dancers entertained a restive audience of regulars, strip-club first-timers and journalists until Daniels sashayed onstage as a sequined Little Red Riding Hood.
She performed in heels that were modest by the standards of the night - a reminder, like the 1980s dance music, that Daniels, at 39, is a senior figure among strippers. As the crowd broke into chants of "Stormy! Stormy! Stormy!" and some showered her with bills, all things were revealed, as Cloakroom promises they will be this week.
It was all over in about 10 minutes.
Or so it seemed, until Daniels crawled along the bar with a man carrying a purple bucket walking beside her. Strip-club newcomers were transfixed, tucking bills into her thong. One man pressed Daniels to join him on his bar stool. She declined. "I'm not doing lap dances tonight," Daniels told him.
Is that what visitors should expect when Daniels comes to Washington, D.C.?
"No," said de Moya, who was willing to offer some idea of what not to expect: At the Cloakroom, performers are not allowed on the bar.
"This is a high-class gentlemen's club," de Moya said as neon-blue lights shone on a topless dancer nearby. "You can quote me on that."
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