US First Lady Melania Trump at the New York Stock Exchange where she promoted her film (Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
There are no grey areas with Melania Trump. Everything is very clearly black or white.
Critics have hated the First Lady’s documentary, released earlier this month, titled simply Melania, almost as much as audiences have loved it.
Supporters of US President Donald Trump have wanted her movie to succeed as eagerly as his opponents have prayed for it to flop.
The film vindicated Melania with its record opening weekend box office, and delighted her detractors when its earnings plummeted this last weekend.
Slickly made with glossy adoring shots of her soaring stilettos, designer gowns and cheekbones sharp enough to fillet a flounder, while it won’t win any Oscars, the production is not the mortifying mess that many left-wingers hoped it would be.
More importantly, it has established Melania Trump as a commanding presence ready to hold centre stage in her own right: a possible nod toward her post-Washington DC future stepping out on her own.
While Donald Trump resides in the White House, Melania now lives in a gilded tower at the couple’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Considering the veiled tensions between the duo in recent years – the slapped-away hand, the withering side-eye, reports of separate bedrooms, and Trump chronicler Michael Wolff claiming “they are separated” and “live separate lives” – the documentary Melania could be seen as a major step toward her independence.
She is such a polarising figure that it should be no surprise that in the documentary, the First Lady’s stylist, Hervé Pierre, describes the inaugural gown Melania wore last year as being in her colours: “black and white.”
“It’s very me,” agrees Melania, aged 55.
Black and white was the colour scheme on the cover of her 2024 memoir, Melania; in her official portrait, clad in a black Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo suit with white shirt; and in her documentary’s advertising posters featuring the First Lady in various black-and-white ensembles, with her name spelled out in black against a field of white.
Her film’s White House screening and launch party featured a black carpet, with black-and-white popcorn buckets, biscuits and cake pops.
The black and white theme is not only symbolic of the bitter divisions that Melania inspires, but also stands in stark contrast to President Trump’s favourite colours of red, white, blue, and copious lashings of gold.
It is also the clearest sign that she is positioning herself as a brand in fashion, media, and beyond, that could give her a new life – and financial freedom – after she and her husband depart the White House.
“It’s all about supporting this luxury brand that she’s building,” says Melania’s longtime agent Marc Beckman, describing her powerfully minimalist sartorial vision and tailored silhouettes as “very symmetrical, right angles, black and white”.
President Trump and First Lady Melania arrive for the state banquet in Windsor Castle last September (Image: AP)
Melania recognises that her highly visible status as First Lady offers her a “unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity… to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories” and make millions leveraging her celebrity.
That was the message in a lawsuit defending her reputation that she filed in 2017 during her first stint in the White House, declaring her interest in capitalising on fashion, accessories, jewellery, haircare and fragrances.
Yet back then, Melania expected her plans to wait until after her husband left office.
“The First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so,” said her lawyer, Charles Harder.
But times have changed, and the Trump clan has since been royally cashing in on the presidency, with a Trump cryptocurrency, social media site Truth Social, hotel and office tower deals overseas, and other enterprises raking in more than £1billion last year.
Melania is no stranger to branding her image: she began selling her own line of watches and jewellery on QVC in 2010, and launched her own skincare line two years later.
Though her brand has been slow to build, she is now poised to exploit the global platform she has been given.
Her documentary is Brand Melania’s declaration of intent.
Admittedly, film critics have not been kind, condemning it as blatant propaganda. Variety called it a “cheeseball infomercial of staggering inertia,” and The Guardian dubbed it “dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing.”
Yet they fail to recognise that the film is just a building block in the brand edifice Melania hopes to create.
After its run in cinemas, the documentary will stream on Amazon Prime, where it will doubtless gain millions more viewers. Amazon will also stream a docu-series comprising additional material that didn’t make it into the movie: yet another opportunity to solidify Melania’s brand.
Her website, melaniatrump.com, already sells jewellery including a £440 Lady Liberty gold necklace, and a £180 three-leaf clover “Love & Gratitude” necklace presumably aimed at next month’s St Patrick’s Day. She has produced five tranches of “collectible” ornaments that have all sold out.
And her newly formed Muse Films production company holds the promise of further forays into film and television, aiming to emulate Oprah Winfrey’s lifestyle, media and marketing empire.
“Superior storytelling drives culture and in turn moves markets,” said Melania as she rung the bell opening the New York Stock Exchange last month to promote her movie.
Nobody would be surprised if the Slovenian-born former model launched her own signature fashion, skincare and fragrance lines before too long. It’s arguable Melania is already proving her haters wrong
Despite her critics, Melania’s documentary proves there is an audience out there eager for a glimpse into her lifestyle.
Prince Harry’s equally polarising wife Meghan has shown that a beautiful woman in the public eye can parlay her elevated position into a television series as the launchpad for a lifestyle brand. Melania has surely been taking notes, and is already counting the banknotes.
(L-R) Melania Trump with Peter Giacchi about to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (Image: Getty Images)
Her film was produced at a near-record cost for a documentary: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos paid an unprecedented £29million – of which Melania received £20million – to have cameras follow her for the 20 days leading up to her husband’s inauguration in January 2025, plus another £25million on marketing and advertising: unheard-of sums in the low-rent world of documentaries.
Sceptics have accused Bezos of over-paying Melania to curry favour with the president, repairing their previously fractious relationship in the hope of winning favourable treatment for Amazon in any future interactions with government anti-trust regulators, its defence contracts, and Bezos’ Blue Origin spaceship’s federal contracts.
Yet the film surpassed all expectations, earning £5million at the US box office in its opening weekend.
“No one saw that coming,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter.
Rotten Tomatoes, the website that aggregates film critics’ reviews, gave the documentary a shockingly low 8% score, and yet the same website’s score from certified moviegoers was a near-perfect 99%. The disparity was so great that Rotten Tomatoes was forced to issue a statement confirming that its audience reviews were all by “verified” ticket-buyers, insisting: “There has been no bot manipulation on the audience reviews”.
The film’s US box office take plummeted 67% last weekend, which delighted Trump’s adversaries but was to be expected when the American football spectacular Super Bowl kept millions glued to their televisions on Sunday, and a cold front freezing much of the country further depressed cinema earnings.
While Donald Trump’s popularity has fallen to a record low 39%, and even die-hard Republicans are wavering in their support in the face of the rising cost of living, economic uncertainty and controversial raids on illegal immigrants, Melania’s image has been burnished by her documentary.
Though movie profits are usually driven by younger male audiences, researchers found that older women have been flocking to see Melania’s film.
“This older, female audience admires and looks up to Melania as a role model,” states a report by Franchise Entertainment Research chief David Gross. Melania’s US ticket-buyers were 72% women and 83% over 45 years old, reported Variety. Most of the women came from rural, conservative areas, and 75% were white.
It is a demographic of core Republican voters that Donald Trump desperately needs to retain if he is to keep control of Congress after the mid-term elections coming in November.
The documentary does not need to make a profit to be a marketing and strategic success for Amazon.
It has already proven a home run for Melania, who is positioning herself to follow in the stilettoed footsteps of Jacqueline Kennedy and Michelle Obama as a style-setting First Lady, and perhaps paves the way for her role after she departs the White House – with or without Donald Trump.
Billboard for new Melania film up in lights at Piccadilly Circus, London (Image: Getty Images)