First Lady Melania Trump’s sudden on-camera statement denying any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was about controlling the image of her personal life, says the author Michael Wolff.
Melania shocked many when she took the extraordinary step of summoning reporters to hear her read a prepared statement in which she declared she was never a friend of Epstein or his top associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I was never involved in any capacity—I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane, and never visited his private island," she said from the White House on Thursday.
Her statement raised questions about the timing of her speaking out—something her top aide vaguely answered, claiming she simply reached a breaking point and that “enough was enough.”
However, that vague explanation has not quelled speculation about “why now?”
Wolff sued the first lady in October after she threatened to file a $1 billion defamation lawsuit against him. He told the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast that Melania’s statement is the Slovenia-born first lady’s latest attempt—despite holding one of the most public positions in the world—to keep how she came to America private.
“This is the first time a first lady would have sued a journalist or media organizations who are saying things about her,” he said, adding, “I don’t think there’s any instance of a president or the first lady suing the media.”
Wolff continued, “From the beginning, she has fiercely tried to protect and control her version of her life after she came to New York in the 1990s.”
Wolff told the podcast’s co-host, Joanna Coles, that many details about how Melania first arrived in New York remain unknown, including, “How did she come here? Who brought her here? Under what legal auspices? How did she work here?”
He continued, “Many, many, many details which are, you know, might be, that might have answers that she does not want the public to know and that might be kind of complicated for her.”
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung has previously given the Daily Beast a recycled statement on Wolff, saying, “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--- and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Wolff noted that Melania has previously resorted to the courts to “shut down questions about her life.”
He pointed to her lawsuit against the Daily Mail, in which she sued the tabloid over an article claiming she once worked as an escort. The Mail settled the suit for $2.9 million in 2017.
Wolff added that Melania’s desire to keep so much of her life private stands in sharp contrast to that of former first ladies.
“In the past where we understood that someone was the president of the United States or someone was the first lady, the public has a right to know, the public has a right to discuss, the public has a right to speculate, the public has a right to literally say anything they want about these people who have such power in our lives,” he said.
“This is a moment in time when the president and the first lady have decided, ‘No, we’re gonna push back about that,’” he added. “‘We’re in control, you’re not.’”
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