{"id":508536,"date":"2026-02-27T23:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508536\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T23:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T23:40:16","slug":"the-rolling-stones-deny-band-gave-melania-producers-permission-to-use-gimme-shelter-in-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508536\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rolling Stones deny band gave ‘Melania’ producers permission to use ‘Gimme Shelter’ in documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A source close to Mick Jagger<\/a> has denied that he gave the producers of Melania permission to use The Rolling Stones<\/a>\u2019 \u2018Gimme Shelter\u2019 in the documentary.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ronnie Wood talks Rolling Stones\u2019 \u2018Hackney Diamonds\u2019: \u201cThese songs are explosive\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Producer Marc Beckman said earlier this week that the band\u2019s frontman approved of the song\u2019s use, in contrast to Guns N\u2019 Roses, Grace Jones and Prince\u2019s estate, who all refused<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He told Variety<\/a> that Jagger \u201cwas actually involved\u201d and \u201cgave his blessing\u201d, but a source close to the rock icon said, per The Guardian<\/a>, that he felt scepticism was required as the producer was attempting to promote the documentary.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for The Rolling Stones also told the newspaper that the band did not liaise with Beckman over the use of the track in the film \u2013 the deal was made between the producers and music company ABKCO, which owns the rights to the band\u2019s pre-1971 material.<\/p>\n

The film, which follows First Lady Melania Trump in the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s inauguration in January 2025, opens in his Mar-a-Lago resort using \u2018Gimme Shelter\u2019 as the soundtrack.<\/p>\n

Beckman claimed about The Rolling Stones, \u201cWe worked very close with them on that. And that wasn\u2019t a political thing. With the Stones, they were just like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re making a nice movie.\u2019 They were able to get over the hurdle. It\u2019s not politics \u2013 it\u2019s just some story about some woman that is going from being a civilian back into the White House, and this movie looks cool and Brett [Ratner, director] is doing a cool job and Melania Trump is focused, and let\u2019s do it. We showed it to them and they were impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stones have previously objected to the use of their music in Trump rallies, too, alongside Guns N\u2019 Roses<\/a>, Jones<\/a>, Prince<\/a>\u2019s estate, Foo Fighters<\/a>, ABBA<\/a>, Adele<\/a>, Neil Young<\/a>, Bruce Springsteen<\/a>, Queen<\/a>, R.E.M<\/a>, Jack White<\/a> and Celine Dion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About Guns N\u2019 Roses, Jones and Prince, Beckman told Variety: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you on the record, if you want to know. There was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there were politics to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, the guys from Guns N\u2019 Roses split down the middle politically,\u201d he added. \u201cThere was a beautiful song we wanted to use, and one of the guys \u2013 I don\u2019t want to name, it\u2019s not fair \u2013\u00a0said, \u2018You got it. Go.\u2019 And the other one was basically like, \u2018There\u2019s just no way.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed everybody\u2019s approval to get it in the film. So Guns N\u2019 Roses was definitely a disappointment for us; we all have a lot of respect for Guns N\u2019 Roses.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThere was a song that we wanted to use from Grace Jones; obviously, also a tremendous amount of respect for her. She apparently couldn\u2019t get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, of Prince\u2019s estate, producers were told by a lawyer that \u201cPrince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Radiohead<\/a>\u2019s Jonny Greenwood<\/a> and director Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a> asked for their Phantom Thread<\/a> music to be removed <\/a>\u2013 a request that was shut down by the producer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film opened at Number 29 at the UK box office \u2013 making just under \u00a333,000 in its first week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, around that same time, figures emerged that it had earned $9.5million (\u00a37million) globally at the box office from a budget of $40million, plus a reported $35million (\u00a325.6million) extra in marketing. It is a particularly high figure for a documentary, and some have contested the legitimacy of the stats, with The Daily Beast<\/a> reporting accusations of \u201cfake tickets sales\u201d made to boost the movie\u2019s fortunes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A source close to Mick Jagger has denied that he gave the producers of Melania permission to use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,2490,134,136,84,1771],"class_list":["post-508536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-politics","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}