President Donald Trump's "latest questionable friend" — who even accompanied him to China last week — was introduced to him by his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, according to the president's biographer.
Author Michael Wolff told The Daily Beast that Melania's close aide, Marc Beckman, connected her to "disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner," who also had ties to late financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ratner has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women and directed Melania's self-titled documentary.
“The guy who has become Melania’s sort of main adviser, chief of staff, marketing guru, COO of Melania Enterprises ... apparently knew Brett Ratner, and that was the connection,” Wolff told his co-host Joanna Coles, The Daily Beast's Chief Creative and Content Officer, during an episode of their podcast "Inside Trump's Head."
Ratner went on to direct the Melania documentary that Beckman, who has worked with her as an advisor for 20 years, produced, Wolff said.
Since then, he's become a member of Trump's inner-circle and last week traveled to China with the president. Coles told Wolff, “I got a note from a producer friend yesterday who’s been at the Cannes Film Festival saying that she ... saw Brett Ratner showing everybody his photographs of his new best friend Donald Trump in China."
Wolff said Trump was treating Ratner as a "security blanket" as other members of his entourage fall out of favor.
Ratner was revealed to be connected to Epstein and in the Department of Justice's Epstein file release in December, one photo showed Ratner sitting next to Epstein and holding an unknown woman. Another image showed Ratner embracing a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout and owner of a modeling agency with significant financial backing from Epstein. Brunel died by apparent suicide in 2022 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, much like Epstein allegedly had in 2019.
"Can you imagine any other first lady’s office approving Brett Ratner?" Coles said. "I mean, I’m not saying that Steven Spielberg would have done it, but there are so many directors that could have done this."
