thrust himself into the public spotlight this year as the hard-talking, no-nonsense lawyer who is also a chief liberal opponent to Donald Trump. Avenatti is representing Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who had an alleged affair with Trump and is now suing the president to annul a non-disclosure agreement.

For months, Trump and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, have offered varying explanations for the $130,000 given to Daniels. These include denying that the president knew about the payment to the film star and denying that Trump had any relationship with Daniels in the first place.

Most recently, in what pundits call the most devastating day for the Trump presidency, Cohen testified that he had paid Daniels "at the direction" of the president, "for the principal purpose of influencing theelection." This was an astonishing admission, and a significant win for both Daniels and Avenatti.

In recent weeks, Avenatti has also turned his crusade against Trump into political ambition, traveling to key presidential primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire in a bid to explore a 2020 run on the Democratic ticket. But before he was rubbing shoulders with celebrities at the MTV video music awards or holding "resistance rallies" in Texas, Avenatti was a student at Penn.

He transferred to the school after studying for a year at St. Louis University, and lived in Stouffer College House during his early days on campus. He described his time at Penn as “a very non-traditional experience.”

“Shortly after I came to the University, I took some time off to work on