Friend believed porn actor and Trump were up to more than 'cards or Scrabble'

A friend of the adult film actor who was allegedly paid $130,000 not to discuss her sexual involvement with Donald Trump believed there was more “going on” than “playing cards or Scrabble” when her friend called to invite her to “party” with the businessman in a hotel room in 2006.

Interviewed by the NBC host Megyn Kelly on Tuesday, porn actor Alana Evans discussed reports about Trump’s alleged relationship with Stephanie Clifford, an actor whose professional name is Stormy Daniels.

Adding to what she had previously told the Daily Beast, Evans described calls she says she received from Clifford, asking her to join her and Trump at the hotel during a golf event in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

“If you’re inviting me to a hotel room to hang out with another man and a girlfriend of mine,” Evans said, “it’s very easy for you to, you know, believe that there’s going to be more going on than just, you know, playing cards or Scrabble.”

Evans heard Trump say, “Come hang out with us, come have fun, let’s party,” she said, repeating that she turned her phone off and did not join Clifford and Trump.

Asked what Clifford had told her happened that night, Evans repeated Clifford’s reported description of Trump “chasing [Clifford] around the bedroom in his tighty-whities” – a slang expression for underwear.

That “isn’t something you ever forget”, Evans said.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that on the eve of the 2016 election, Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, paid $130,000 to Clifford.

Cohen denied the Journal report and released a statement, signed under Clifford’s professional name, which said: “Rumors that I have received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false.

“If indeed I did have a relationship with Donald Trump, trust me, you wouldn’t be reading about it in the news, you would be reading about it in my book.”

In a statement to the Guardian, the White House said: “These are old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.” The White House did not comment further on Tuesday.

Before the 2016 vote, Clifford was reportedly in discussions with ABC to disclose her alleged affair with Trump.

Trump was then accused of numerous allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behaviour, most explosively around the release of an NBC tape from 2005 in which he was heard bragging about groping women.

The New York Times, the Daily Beast and Slate have reported on media discussions with Clifford before the election.

The Beast also reported that a third actor in pornographic films, Jessica Drake, is now subject to a non-disclosure agreement regarding Trump, whom she accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour at the same 2006 Lake Tahoe event.

At the time of Trump’s alleged interactions with Clifford, Evans and Drake, he was a 60-year-old real-estate businessman and TV personality, recently married to his third wife. Melania Trump gave birth to Trump’s fifth child, Barron, in March that year.