Jeff Bezos’ Amazon pays $40 million for Melania Trump documentary
A new report highlights how Jeff Bezos continues to “actively use his media properties” to get on Donald Trump’s good side by revealing that his Amazon film and television studio will pay $40 million to license the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump.
“You’re not alone in raising both eyebrows at Sunday’s news that Bezos’s Amazon will release a Melania Trump documentary directed by Brett Ratner,” wrote Puck co-founder Matthew Belloni in a report published Tuesday. Belloni said the $40 million payday was confirmed by three sources familiar with the deal.
Ratner happens to be the disgraced “Rush Hour” director who has not made a Hollywood movie since 2018, when he was accused of sexual assault and harassment by multiple women, including actors Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported. Melania Trump apparently has no trouble entrusting her life story to Ratner, perhaps because he has denied the allegations and never been charged with a crime or because she’s married to a man who also has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.
In any case, Belloni said the $40 million includes the cost for Melania Trump’s “vanity documentary,” which will get a small theatrical release and then appear on Prime Video. The cost also covers a previously undisclosed two-to-three-episode follow-up docuseries on the former and future first lady. Melania Trump will participate in both projects and received the title of executive producer.
Belloni said it’s unclear how much Amazon is paying Melania Trump to participate in the documentary and to “produce” it while her husband is still in office. But he said, “I’m betting it’s a big chunk of that $40 million.”
Belloni said that Amazon has declined to comment. The Daily Beast reported the documentary, which began shooting last month, promises to offer an “unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at First Lady Melania Trump.”
In recent weeks, Ratner has posted images of himself in Palm Beach, Florida, the Daily Beast reported. Melania and Donald Trump have been staying at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate before he moves back to Washington, D.C., later this month to assume the presidency.
The news about the Melania Trump documentary comes after Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chairman, and his glamorous fiancée Lauren Sanchez recently dined at Mar-A-Lago. The Daily Beast media reporter Corbin Boilies noted that any exclusive look into the Melania Trump’s life would be highly sought after by many outlets. Then again, Amazon’s choice to pay so much to produce the film represents the latest public effort by Bezos and his companies to “warm up” to Trump and his family after years of feuding.
Amazon reportedly plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, news that coincides with Bezos’ Washington Post killing a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes that depicted Bezos and other tech billionaires bending their knees to Trump with bags of money. Indeed, Bezos is among a stream of executives who have visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks, as businesses and Wall Street have sought influence in the incoming administration, the Daily Beast said in another report.
At The Washington Post, the cartoon controversy was preceded by Bezos preventing his paper from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris before the election, saying he wanted to end the paper’s decades-long tradition of making presidential endorsements. More than 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions because of Bezos’s intervention.