{"id":275222,"date":"2026-02-01T10:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275222\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T10:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:46:11","slug":"melania-trump-is-not-rapunzel-in-the-tower-pining-to-be-saved-from-the-ogre-imprisoning-her-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275222\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump is not Rapunzel in the tower, pining to be saved from the ogre imprisoning her \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The riddle of the Slovenian Sphinx has been solved. The perennial question about what Melania Trump<\/a> is really like, behind her exquisite mannequin\u2019s mask, has been answered by her new infomercial, Melania. It turns out there is no riddle, no enigma, no mystery, no dark anguish.<\/p>\n

Melania is not Rapunzel in the tower, pining to be saved from the ogre imprisoning her. She is comfortable in the frosty vertical solitude of the tower, swaddled in luxury.<\/p>\n

Some theatres showing Melania were so empty that wags suggested immigrants lacking legal status should hide out there. Reviews are brutal: The Independent said the first lady came across as \u201ca preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda\u201d. The Guardian dismissed the movie as \u201cgilded trash\u201d, and Variety asked, \u201cWhy would Amazon<\/a> spend $75 million on a movie this boring?\u201d (I think we all know the answer to that.)<\/p>\n

But the portrait of \u201cThe Portrait\u201d, as Melania was nicknamed by Ivanka Trump, is revealing because it doesn\u2019t reveal anything. We don\u2019t even learn whether Melania\u2019s feet ache after hours of wearing stilettos. (I picture her as having Barbie feet that cannot flatten.)<\/p>\n

We knew everything we needed to know about her in the wake of January 6th, 2021<\/a>. In the memoir of Stephanie Grisham, Melania\u2019s former aide and confidant, Grisham told a chilling story about the chilly first lady. When the rioters broke through the barricades outside the Capitol, Grisham sent Melania a text: \u201cDo you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?\u201d Melania texted back simply, \u201cNo.\u201d She was busy getting ready for a photo shoot of a rug she had chosen for the White House.<\/p>\n

Melania knows her deal with the author of The Art of the Deal. She seems to have no problem with his authoritarian ways. (She is something of an authoritarian herself when it comes to tailoring her inaugural outfits, supervising every scintilla of cloth.)<\/p>\n

The president, who once dreamed of being a Hollywood macher, casts his Cabinet based on who looks right for each part. He cast Melania as the alluring, supportive and often-silent wife. She accepts that role and isn\u2019t, as her movie claims, reinventing the role of first lady. The East Wing, until Donald Trump tore it down, was her drop-by.<\/p>\n

\"FirstFirst lady Melania Trump looks on as president Donald Trump speaks to reporters before the premiere of the documentary film Melania at the Kennedy Center, Washington, on Thursday. Photograph: Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Over the years, liberals have fantasised that she was a secret member of the #resistance; that she was a phantom at the White House because she couldn\u2019t stand to be around her husband; that one day, the Slovenian immigrant would, as conjugal saboteur, renounce Trump\u2019s harsh policies on immigration, castigating his betrayal of her with Stormy Daniels while Melania was pregnant, and denouncing his crude talk about women\u2019s private parts and looks.<\/p>\n

But stop waiting. She chose Brett Ratner<\/a>, a director driven out of Hollywood after sexual assault and misconduct claims, to be her hagiographer. (Trump pressed the Paramount heads for a fourth instalment of Ratner\u2019s Rush Hour, and the Ellisons obeyed.) Ratner dwells salaciously on her five-inch stilettos, long legs, comely ankles and cascade of frosted hair.<\/p>\n

Melania is where she wants to be: in the bosom of a corrupt family that is prostituting the People\u2019s House. Following up her shady ventures into NFTs and a meme coin, the first lady got a windfall from Jeff Bezos<\/a>, who certainly wanted to curry favour with her husband. Bezos\u2019 Amazon MGM studio made her movie, providing a whopping $40 million for the film and another $35 million for marketing. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania\u2019s cut of the $40 million was at least $28 million.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Melania review: Shameless propaganda that could put you to sleepOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This is particularly gross, given that Amazon is engaged in mass lay-offs and Bezos seems intent on starving his Washington Post of money and talent. The split screen of Bezos and his spendthrift wife, Lauren S\u00e1nchez, frolicking everywhere \u2013 including Paris Fashion Week \u2013 while the tech mogul defiles the crown jewel nurtured by Ben Bradlee and Kay Graham is sickening.<\/p>\n

Speaking of sickening, in a 2002 email from the newly released Epstein<\/a> files that The New York Times said is from a \u201cMelania\u201d and appears to be written to Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, \u201cMelania\u201d praises a profile of Jeffrey Epstein in New York magazine and says of Maxwell, \u201cYou look great on the picture.\u201d Maxwell calls \u201cMelania\u201d \u201cSweet pea\u201d, and \u201cMelania\u201d signs her email \u201cLove\u201d.<\/p>\n

The \u201cdocumentary\u201d features a candlelight dinner the night before Trump\u2019s second inauguration, where all the tech moguls who lavished him with money and gold gifts are partying at the National Building Museum \u2013 including Bezos, with S\u00e1nchez, and Elon Musk<\/a>, with his date on his lap.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald and US Melania Trump attend the world premiere of Amazon MGM Studios’ Melania at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

In a voiceover, Melania talks about her \u201ccreative vision\u201d coming to life in the room \u201cfilled with the elegance and sophistication of our donors. They\u2019re truly the driving force behind the campaign and its philosophy and the reason our victory is possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thanks, Bezos, Musk, Tim Cook, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg!<\/p>\n

Melania had editorial control over the movie, which covers the 20 days before the 2025 inauguration. There\u2019s a scene where Melania is proud to have persuaded her husband to proclaim in his inaugural address that he\u2019s going to be \u201ca unifier\u201d. She seems oblivious to the fact that his rhetoric and policies are designed to enrage and divide.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump\u2019s cabinet attends premiere of Amazon\u2011backed documentary MelaniaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She and her son, Barron Trump, do not want to get out of the limo during the inaugural parade, and she keens about political violence, again without acknowledging that her husband has been provoking violence since he and Melania rode down his golden escalator.<\/p>\n

She has a warm chat about her immigrant roots with a designer who is an immigrant from Laos, ignoring that her husband has torn the United States apart by denigrating immigrants and unleashing a rabid force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> agents on US cities. (Now Trump has restricted visas from 75 countries, including Laos.)<\/p>\n

Melania, the movie star, lives up to the message on the infamous jacket she wore to a migrant child detention centre: \u201cI really don\u2019t care. Do U?\u201d It turns out she does care \u2013 for herself.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The riddle of the Slovenian Sphinx has been solved. The perennial question about what Melania Trump is really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3468,969,605,93,11186,66408,61,60,3916,11111,22680,85573],"class_list":["post-275222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-amazon","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-ghislaine-maxwell","tag-ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-melania-trump","tag-us-capitol-riot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}