The controversial behind-the-scenes Amazon documentary<\/a>, titled simply Melania, follows the First Lady in the 20 days leading up to her husband\u2019s 2025 inauguration. It was directed by disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner, who was publicly accused of sexual harassment and assault<\/a> by six women in 2017. The Rush Hour filmmaker has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n According to a new report in Rolling Stone<\/a>, which cites multiple anonymous sources who worked on the film, the majority of the New York-based crew asked to be left off the credits.<\/p>\n A person whose work was credited told the outlet that they regretted putting their name on the film, saying: \u201cI\u2019m much more alarmed now than I was a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not return The Independent\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n The majority of crew members who worked on Melania Trump’s documentary asked to have their names removed from the credits, according to a recent report (Getty) open image in gallery<\/p>\n Brett Ratner has returned from Hollywood exile to direct a documentary about the First Lady, ‘Melania’ (Getty)<\/p>\n Other crew members said that the worst part of working on the First Lady\u2019s Amazon MGM documentary <\/a>had nothing to do with the president or the politics involved \u2014 but instead came from sharing a set with Ratner.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this,\u201d a member of the production team<\/a> told Rolling Stone. \u201cBut Brett Ratner was the worst part of working on this project.\u201d <\/p>\n Melania is the first movie Ratner has made since Hercules in 2014.<\/p>\n Insiders told the outlet that Ratner\u2019s Melania set was chaotic and disorganized, with crew members often working long hours and being forced to work without meal breaks. The director was also accused of leaving trash everywhere and being dismissive to his employees.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was more talk about Brett being slimy than there was about Melania,\u201d a production team member told the outlet about Ratner, who is also slated to direct a new installment in the Rush Hour franchise on the president\u2019s personal request<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Ratner<\/a> made terrible impressions on set, crew members reported that the First Lady was \u201cboring\u201d and \u201cnice.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Amazon told Rolling Stone: \u201cWe licensed the film for one reason and one reason only \u2013 because we think customers are going to love it.\u201d Amazon did not immediately return The Independent\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n \u2018Melania\u2019 follows the First Lady in the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration (Getty)<\/p>\n Amazon reportedly spent $75 million to acquire and promote the new movie, although CNN polling analyst Harry Enten estimates the documentary will earn between just $1 million and $5 million <\/a>during its opening weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, if it does flop, I would really feel great about it,\u201d a crew member told Rolling Stone.<\/p>\n After the White House held a private screening <\/a>for the movie earlier this week, Melania will premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.,<\/a> Thursday and open in theaters worldwide Friday.<\/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":395483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-395482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2258653866.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Brett](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-472019922-(1).jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\u2018Melania\u2019](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2254208341.jpg\")
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