{"id":500756,"date":"2026-02-26T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/500756\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:08:09","slug":"melania-trump-documentary-producer-shares-musicians-who-refused-to-let-songs-be-used-in-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/500756\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump documentary producer shares musicians who refused to let songs be used in film"},"content":{"rendered":"

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First, it was Radiohead\u2019s Jonny Greenwood who asked that his music be removed<\/a> from the controversial Melania Trump<\/a> documentary<\/a>. But now, the film\u2019s producer has opened up about the other musicians who said no to their music featuring in the film.<\/p>\n

Released in January by Amazon MGM Studios, Melania<\/a> follows the US first lady in the 20 days leading up to husband Donald\u2019s second inauguration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film saw polarised reactions between critic reviews and paying audience members<\/a>, while musician Greenwood and director Paul Thomas Anderson made headlines when they condemned the use of the score of their 2017 film Phantom Thread on the soundtrack.<\/p>\n

In a new interview, producer Marc Beckman has shared that the team behind Melania had tried to include music from a number of acts who said no. \u201cThere was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there [was] politics to it,\u201d he told Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beckman said that there was a \u201cbeautiful song\u201d by Guns N\u2019 Roses that they\u2019d wanted to use, but that the group had disagreed over whether to grant permission and couldn\u2019t go ahead without universal agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the guys \u2013 I don\u2019t want to name, it\u2019s not fair \u2013 said, \u2018You got it. Go.\u2019 And the other one was basically like, \u2018There\u2019s just no way,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cSo 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

\"Axl<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Axl Rose and Slash of Guns N\u2019 Roses, whose music ended up not featuring in the \u2018Melania\u2019 documentary (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Beckman revealed that they\u2019d also tried to use a track by Grace Jones, whom he said he had a \u201ctremendous amount of respect for\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe apparently couldn\u2019t get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too. It\u2019s disappointing when people put politics so far ahead, and that happened a little bit with the film, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Prince estate was also said to have blocked the use of one of the late singer\u2019s songs at the last minute, on the lawyer\u2019s grounds that \u201cPrince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018But it’s not a Donald Trump film! He comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It\u2019s not political.\u2019 And that guy blocked it. It\u2019s so ridiculous,\u201d Beckman said.<\/p>\n

\"Music<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Music by Grace Jones was blocked, as the producer said the artist could not get over \u2018the political hurdle\u2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

The issue of the Melania soundtrack was raised in February by Greenwood and Anderson, when they asked for their music to be removed from the film. Greenwood said that the score had been licensed by its owner, Universal, but that they hadn\u2019t consulted him, which was in breach of his composer agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-500756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}