President Donald Trump took to social media Friday to promote the film “Melania,” a documentary about first lady Melania Trump set to premiere in theaters next week, though the film’s director has raised eyebrows after having been featured in the Justice Department’s latest drop of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
“COUNTDOWN: 7 Days until the World will witness an unforgettable, behind-the-scenes, look at one of the most important events of our time,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, along with a link to upcoming showtimes and locations for the film.
The film was shot starting in December 2024, following Trump’s election victory, and was later acquired by Amazon MGM studios for around $40 million. It’s produced by Melania Trump and directed by Brett Ratner, who is perhaps best known for his work on the “Rush Hour” film series.
Ratner made an exodus from Hollywood for several years starting in 2017 after being accused of rape and sexual misconduct by six women. Ratner did not face any criminal charges from the accusations and has denied the allegations. Warner Bros. did, however, cut ties with Ratner in the wake of the allegations, and declined to renew its $450 million contract with Ratner’s film production company RatPac Entertainment.
Years after the allegations against Ratner, his name would come up again in the news – not only for his return to filmmaking with “Melania” – his first film since 2014 – but for appearing in the DOJ’s drop of Epstein files. Among the thousands of files published by the DOJ on Dec. 19 was a photo of Ratner embracing a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout and owner of the international modeling agency MC2 Model Management, a modeling agency with considerable financial support from Epstein.
Brunel died in 2022 of apparent suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and in a manner not dissimilar to how Epstein died in 2019.