Stormy Daniels brings ’60 Minutes’ its biggest audience since the Obamas were on in 2008

The highly anticipated “60 Minutes” interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels on Sunday, during which she discussed President Trump, was watched by 21.3 million viewers, the CBS program’s largest audience since 2008.

Data from Nielsen showed that was the most viewers an episode of the newsmagazine has had since 24.5 million people watched Barack and Michelle Obama give their first post-election interview on the show on Nov. 16, 2008.

How Stormy Daniels’ candor and humor in her ’60 Minutes’ interview showed ‘a woman to be reckoned with’ »

In recent weeks, “60 Minutes” has been drawing about 10 million viewers.

In Sunday’s sit-down with correspondent Anderson Cooper, Daniels described the affair she says she had with Trump in 2006. She also said she was threatened with physical harm in 2011 if she went public with her story.

Daniels said that a few weeks after Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen learned that she had shared her story with In Touch magazine, a stranger approached her and her young daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot, told her to “leave Trump alone” and delivered a warning.

“That’s a beautiful little girl,” she said the man told her. “It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”

Trump lawyer and fixer demands apology from Stormy Daniels »

In Touch did not publish Daniels’ story until January of this year, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen had arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 just before the November 2016 presidential election in return for her silence.

Daniels has denied the affair in the past. She told Cooper that she was intimidated into signing nondisclosure agreements about the liaison.

[email protected]

Twitter: @SteveBattaglio

UPDATES:

9:25 a.m.: This article was updated with newly released data from Nielsen.

This article was originally published at 8:20 a.m.