‘I want to show the audience my life’: Melania Trump’s biographer gives her verdict on the biopic

The new movie about, and produced by, Melania Trump was advertised as a big reveal, a pulling back of the curtain on the enigmatic first lady. It is not. “I want to show the audience my life,” Melania told reporters at the world premiere in Washington on Thursday evening. Yet the film has few candid moments. She is never in jeans or without makeup. Even when she opens an interesting topic, like wanting to “break norms” as first lady, she offers few if any details. In scene after scene, viewers see her living in an opulent bubble, often alone and on a private jet and usually wearing designer Christian Louboutin stilettos that cost more than millions of Americans earn in a month.

Melania narrates the film, had editorial control over it, and was paid millions for it. According to numerous reports, Amazon MGM Studios paid $40m (£29m) for it, more than half of which went directly to Melania, and another $35m to advertise it.

One norm Melania is breaking is that first ladies typically wait until after they leave the White House to engage in commercial ventures because it can look crass and raise conflict of interest questions. But she seems unbothered by the criticism that those pouring money into her bank account might be seeking favours from her powerful husband. Melania is also currently selling $600 necklaces and other Melania-branded items on her MelaniaTrump.com website.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon who doled out the money for the film, makes a cameo in her film, which focuses on what Melania was doing in the 20 days leading up to the 2025 presidential inauguration. Bezos, along with Elon Musk and other wealthy Trump donors, are seen at a candlelit dinner in Washington that was held the night before Trump was sworn in as president for the second time.

Scenes like that, along with all the footage of Melania jetting between her Mar-a-Lago mansion and her gold and marble Trump Tower apartment, overshadow the moments where Melania talks about efforts to help children, none of whom are on camera.

Like her husband, Melania has ardent critics and enthusiastic fans. Her fans will likely enjoy much about the movie, in which the former model credits her mother with her sense of style. She talks a lot about fashion, her “creative vision" and how she favours clothes that are black and white. “Just a pinch,” she tells her stylist, as she looks in the mirror and asks him to tailor her outfit a tad more to fit her body better.

Melania detractors see the movie as tone deaf. When many American families are struggling to pay medical and electric bills, she is shown overseeing dinners offering caviar served in a golden egg. And there is anger that Melania is not using her influence to get better treatment for mothers, children and others being rounded up in her husband’s immigration crackdown. Melania briefly mentions that she’s an immigrant herself, yet her journey from Slovenia is glossed over.

For years, many have speculated about whether the softly spoken and much younger first lady actually likes her husband. The film depicts her as firmly on Team Trump. "Nobody has endured" what Donald Trump has, she said. "They tried to murder him, incarcerate him and slander him."

In a nod to her influence with her husband, she shows footage of him agreeing to tweak a line in his 2025 inaugural address. She wanted him to add that he wanted to be a “unifier” and he did. The exchange was short, and there was no discussion by the couple of what Trump might do or say to achieve that goal.

Some of those who worked on the documentary did not want to be identified in the credits because they saw it as “propaganda”, according to Rolling Stone and others. The director, Brett Ratner, said yes, there were some “liberal” workers and temporary crew that didn’t want to be associated with it, but the main crew was fully behind the project. Ratner himself heaped more controversy on the film because until now he had kept a low profile since 2017 following allegations by multiple women of sexual misconduct – charges he denies.

In the past, Melania has periodically stepped into the spotlight to soften her husband’s image and help him through rough patches with the public. She described him as a family man after he was caught on tape saying vulgar things about women. And, no matter how harsh and confrontational he is, she has insisted that he really is “kind and fair and caring”.

But with this film, Melania only reinforces the growing criticism that her husband is using the presidency to enrich himself through his family’s crypto business and other lucrative deals.

In fact, Melania is making it clear she’s a dealmaker herself. Because she revealed so little in this film, she has left the door open for future ventures, including news movie deals that could buy her more mansions and bigger closets.

Mary Jordan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Art of Her Deal: the Untold Story of Melania Trump

Photograph by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty