This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The husband of the adult film performer Stormy Daniels has filed for divorce in Texas.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had sex with Donald Trump before he became president, something Trump has denied.

Glendon Crain filed the petition for divorce on 18 July in state district court in Kaufman county, just south-east of Dallas. In his 13-page divorce petition, Crain alleged adultery as grounds for the divorce and sought sole custody of the couple’s seven-year-old daughter and child support from Clifford, as well as a financial award and disproportionate share of the couple’s community property.

According to reports, Crain was also granted a temporary restraining order that would bar Daniels from unsupervised access to their daughter and use of the couple’s shared home, pending a hearing scheduled for Friday.



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Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said in a tweet that Daniels and Crain had decided mutually to end their marriage and that the “accuracy” of the divorce petition was “vehemently disputed”.

A woman answering the phone in the Terrell, Texas, office of Crain’s attorney, Rothwell Pool, said he had no comment since the case was in litigation.

Crain and Daniels married in 2015 and were living together until about two weeks ago, according to the petition.

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Daniels has said she had sex with Trump in 2006 when he was married, which Trump has denied. As part of their investigation into Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, prosecutors have been examining a $130,000 payment that was made to Daniels as part of a confidentiality agreement days before the 2016 presidential election.

In April, FBI agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room; investigators were seeking records about the non-disclosure agreement that Daniels had signed, among other things.

In May, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s attorneys, said the president had repaid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, contradicting Trump’s prior claims that he did not know the source of the money.

Transparency groups and Democrats have argued that secret efforts to silence Trump accusers, including the payment to Daniels, should be investigated by the Federal Election Commission as potential violations of campaign finance laws, which require disclosure of campaign expenditures.

Trump’s attorneys have argued that any payments to accusers would have been made regardless of his presidential candidacy, and that no violation occurred.