The first lady says a two-part follow-up arrives later this year with new personal disclosures, months after director Brett Ratner's original documentary flopped at the box office and drew brutal reviews.
Melania Trump wants a second act. On Wednesday, ahead of ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, the first lady told Fox & Friends that a new two-part docuseries about her is coming out later this year, and that it will look nothing like the film Amazon released in January.
"It will come out this year, and it will be very different what is in the movie," she said. "It's more a conversation one on one with me."
That earlier movie, directed by Brett Ratner and simply titled "Melania," tracked the 20 days before the 2025 inauguration, promising viewers a look at inauguration planning and the family's move back into the White House. It made $16.7 million worldwide. Reviews were savage. LA Times critic Amy Nicholson called it a "vapid, airless, mindless time-waster" and noted that Melania's own company was paid $40 million for the rights, on top of a reported $35 million marketing spend. Nobody around her, Nicholson wrote, seemed to warn her it was a bad idea.
The new project apparently grew out of the same shoot. Melania said the director filmed her while she was travelling and asked questions along the way, including some she's now agreed to answer publicly for the first time. "There's some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before," she said, without saying what they are.
Ratner had already flagged this. Back on August 11, he posted on Instagram, "Here we go again... The saga continues... Can't wait to share with everyone around the world the next two chapters of MELANIA, THE DOCU SERIES!" But as of Wednesday, the LA Times reported, the docuseries doesn't show up in any official press materials, and Amazon Studios hasn't responded to questions about it.
The timing puts Ratner back in an uncomfortable spotlight. "Melania" marked his first film since six women accused him of sexual assault in 2017, allegations he has denied and which have not resulted in criminal charges. Separately, the LA Times reported in February that Ratner appears in photographs from the unsealed Epstein files, alongside unidentified women and Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Ratner's presence in those photos is not itself an allegation of wrongdoing on his part.
What's not clear yet is who's actually financing chapter two, or whether Amazon comes back for another round after the first one bombed. Melania didn't name a platform. Given how the last one landed, that's the question worth watching before this year runs out.
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