Editor's note: This story originally published in March 2018.

The woman sits hooked to an oxygen machine that whirrs like a vacuum cleaner, in an old house in Baton Rouge, in a rough neighborhood she can't afford to leave.

She clicks on the TV. Like the rest of America, she can't escape Stormy Daniels, the porn star who says she was paid $130,000 before the presidential election to keep quiet about her affair with Donald Trump. At the time, his wife Melania was home with their 4-month-old son.

Each image of the smiling, busty blonde — who is parlaying the alleged affair into a national strip club tour — strikes the woman like a bullet. And it's not just because it's an attack on her beloved president.

That 38-year-old isn't Stormy Daniels to her. It's Stephanie Gregory Clifford. Her daughter. The little girl who loved horses.

"It hurts me deeply," said Sheila Gregory, 64. "My friends all say the same thing: 'I can't believe that is the same sweet child — you took such good care of her.'

"I say, 'How do you think I feel?'"

Gregory said she hasn't spoken to her daughter in 12 years — around the time of the Trump encounter, which they've never discussed. She says she calls Daniels every few weeks, but they never connect. She says she doesn't know why her daughter stopped talking to her.

Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, performs at the Solid Gold Fort Lauderdale strip club on March 9 in Pompano Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

Daniels is on her "Make America Horny Again" tour around the nation's strip clubs, shining a spotlight on her raunchy performances. But interviews with Daniels' parents, her neighbors in the quiet Dallas suburb of Forney and her acquaintances in the North Texas horseback-riding community reveal a human life that's far more complex than caricature.

Daniels, who declined to be interviewed, has acknowledged previously that she doesn't talk to her parents anymore. Even so, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, responded with just two words to her mother's stated attempts to contact her daughter: "Fake news."

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***

To hear her mother tell it, Daniels had a promising childhood. Her parents had been married for a decade — and never planned to have kids — before her mother gave birth to Daniels in 1979. Daniels' parents divorced around the time she was 3 or 4. Her father admits he wasn't around much after that.

"I paid my child support and did all that, but I didn't really have any involvement when she was being raised," said Bill Gregory, 68, who now lives in San Diego.

Sheila Gregory worked long days as a trucking company manager — at $4 an hour — to support her studious daughter, who took dance and horse-riding lessons.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford, shown in high school. (Courtesy / Bill Gregory)

Daniels was hurt by her father's disappearance, her mother said. "She wanted her daddy and I couldn't give her her daddy back," her mother said.

When Daniels was about 10, her stepfather gave her $500 for Christmas and she decided to spend it on an old, mistreated horse. For years, her mother would drive her to the stables, where she helped rehabilitate the animal and got it into riding condition. Gregory said her daughter dreamed of becoming a vet.

"She made friends easily. She was funny," her mother said. "But if you made her mad or you hurt her, she just wouldn't have nothing to do with you anymore."

Her mother misses those days.

"I'd give anything to go back to those years," she said.

Daniels received offers from colleges such as Louisiana State University, Mississippi State, Oklahoma and a school in Texas, her mother said. But she didn't want to go.

Stormy Daniels shown at her high school prom in Baton Rouge. (Courtesy / Bill Gregory)

To her mother, Daniels changed pretty much overnight when she turned 18. She still got good grades and her mother believed Daniels wasn't drinking or doing drugs, but Gregory "could just tell something wasn't right."

When Daniels was a senior in high school, her father stopped by and asked Daniels' mother what he could get his daughter as a gift. Sheila Gregory said she'd always found a way — even if it meant working two jobs — to pay for whatever Daniels wanted. The only thing she couldn't afford was a car.

Her father bought her a Toyota Celica.

With her own wheels, Daniels was free to explore the wilder side of Baton Rouge, her mother said.

That same year, when Daniels was 17, she brought a boyfriend to visit her father in Cincinnati, Bill Gregory said. During that trip, he later found out, she danced at a strip club across the river in Kentucky. Her father said he was unhappy, but he felt helpless. That was the last time he saw her.

"Obviously, a father doesn't want his daughter to become a porn star," Bill Gregory said. "But she's an adult — she can do what she wants to do."

Now, he worries about her safety.

"You start rattling the cage of powerful people, and you don't know what might happen," he said.

***

Daniels and her husband, Glendon Miller Crain, moved to Forney in 2014, when their daughter was 4, public records show. They bought a tidy, two-story brick home that was appraised at $215,000.

On Monday, a child's colorful chalk drawings decorated the sidewalk with rainbows and animals. On the front stoop lay a not-so-welcome mat, asking visitors: "What the hell do you want?"

Stormy Daniels, adult film actress and director whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, has this home in Forney. Daniels alleges she had a sexual relationship with President Donald Trump over a decade ago. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Crain also acts in porn and plays drums in a band. Daniels, who has won some equestrian competitions, got Crain into horseback-riding, and he now competes, too. The couple owns several horses.

Rumors swirled this week through the neat rows of quiet, green-lawned homes in the subdivision where the family led an inconspicuous life. Neighbors texted and wrote Facebook messages: Did you hear that Stormy Daniels lives here?

A mother and daughter on her street — quick to say they're Democrats and hate Trump — said they've seen Crain taking out the trash, checking the mail, doing occasional yard work, but they never saw Daniels. They wondered what she did for a living.

Most other neighbors said they'd never seen Daniels either.

"I didn't realize she lived around here — she's not running around naked outside the house or anything like that," said neighbor James Vann, 55, who works in construction.

While she lived fairly quietly in her Forney neighborhood, Daniels didn't shy away from controversy in her life as a horseback rider. Daniels has posted online accusing her former trainer Ellen Doughty-Hume, who owns Rockwall Hills Equestrian Center, of mistreating horses.

Daniels had stabled seven horses at the Rockwall center for years, said Christine Renne, a lawyer for Doughty-Hume. A few years ago, one of Daniels' horses, Bailey, died in a flash flood on the Rockwall barn property, Renne said.

"I thought the drowning death of m (sic) horse and the rest of her behavior was bad enough," Daniels wrote on Facebook in August, linking to an online post accusing Doughty-Hume of mistreating another horse. "Anyone who still supports this monster in any way is completely disgusting."

Accidents happen, Renne said, and Doughty-Hume is "very well regarded in the industry and takes tremendous care of the animals under her care." Doughty-Hume is now considering legal action against Daniels. "We have evidence that refutes most of Stormy's accusations," Renne said.

A YouTube screenshot of a trailer for Stormy Daniels' Unbridled porn movie, released last year. (YouTube.com)

Last year, Daniels released Unbridled, a porn movie that she wrote, directed and starred in, which was shot on a Texas ranch and revolves around equestrian competitors.

"I wanted to showcase two of my own 'passions' at once — eventing with my horse, and making awesome movies," Daniels told AVN, a trade publication, last year.

***

Daniels' mother wonders why Daniels turned to porn. She may never know. She disapproves of her daughter's choices, but also doesn't fault her for doing what she could to make money. Had the mother known dancing was so lucrative, she said, she would have done it back when they were struggling.

But she hopes the scandal involving her daughter doesn't hurt Trump.

"If Mr. Trump runs four more times, I would vote for him every time," Sheila Gregory said. "I like him. I like the way he handles things. It's time this country is put back where it belongs — taking care of the people here instead of the people who don't belong here."

She hopes to reunite with her daughter one day. She will be dead soon, she says.

"I loved her dearly," her mother said. "I still love her dearly."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained the name of Stormy Daniel's subdivision and a photo that showed details about her property. Those pieces of information have been removed from the story.