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There has been no shortage of controversy surrounding Melania Trump’s self-titled documentary. Now, a producer and close advisor to the First Lady is speaking candidly about some of the artists who denied allowing their work to be featured in the movie and its soundtrack.
In a story published by Variety on Monday, Feburary 23, Marc Beckman mentioned a slew of artists who he believes let their opposing views get in the way of allowing their music in the doc, in addition to Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and film director Paul Thomas Anderson, who were upset at the team behind Melania for using a soundtrack cue from the movie The Phantom Thread. (Anderson directed the 2017 film, while Greenwood composed the score.)
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“There was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there were politics to it,” the producer said. “For example, the guys from Guns N’ Roses split down the middle politically. There was a beautiful song we wanted to use, and one of the guys — I don’t want to name, it’s not fair —said, ‘You got it. Go.’ And the other one was basically like, ‘There’s just no way.’”
They weren’t the only ones to turn down Melania producers.
“There was a song that we wanted to use from Grace Jones; obviously, also a tremendous amount of respect for her,” Beckman said. “She apparently couldn’t get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too. It’s disappointing when people put politics so far ahead, and that happened a little bit with the film, for sure.”
He also revealed they were close to getting a Prince track on the film, but his estate stopped them.
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“We were ready to go, and this lawyer that manages the estate was like, ‘Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump,’” he explained. “And we’re like, ‘But it’s not a Donald Trump film! He comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It’s not political.’ And that guy blocked it. It’s so ridiculous.”
Despite Beckman’s assertion that the movie is apolitical, the documentary follows the First Lady in a very political time — the 20 days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration in early 2025.