Jaw-dropping quantity Amazon is paying for Melania Trump documentary

Amazon is paying an astonishing $40million to license Brett Ratner’s documentary about Melania Trump, according to a new report.

The documentary, directed by Ratner, was announced Sunday and is set for release in the second half of 2025 during her husband’s presidency.

Melania, 54, is the production’s executive producer, and Jeff Bezos‘s film and television studio is reportedly shelling out the big bucks for licensing rights.

Following the announcement, sources familiar with the matter revealed the amount to Puck, saying the deal also includes a follow-up docuseries.

It’s unclear what Melania is being paid personally for the project. 

The film and docuseries will appear on Prime Video, with the film getting some time in theaters as well, the insiders said. 

The docuseries will reportedly include two or three episodes, with Melania heavily involved. The documentary began filming last month and will continue during Trump’s presidency.

Disney and Paramount reportedly lost out on the streaming rights after a bidding war with Amazon, which is owned by the second-richest man in the world. Neither Netflix nor Apple took part, the sources said.

‘We are excited to share this truly unique story with our millions of customers around the world,’ an Amazon spokesperson added of the production. More details will be shared later on.   

The documentary will offer viewers an ‘unprecedented behind-the-scenes look’ at Melania’s life, which began in 1970s Slovenia. 

Then known as Melanija Knavs, she began working as a fashion model at the age of 16. 

She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss as she sought more work throughout Europe, before relocating to the US in 1996. 

There she worked as a model in Manhattan, then the stomping grounds of the future president.

The pair met in 1998 before marrying in 2005, after which she gave Trump his fifth and final child, Barron, in 2006.

She published a memoir, Melania, just a few months ago, as media companies across the country continue to try to capitalize on her husband’s upcoming presidency.

It has been at the top of the New York Times’ best-selling list since its release in early October, before her husband’s big win over Kamala Harris.

Since then, media companies ranging from MSNBC to The Walt Disney Corporation have attempted to kiss the president-elect’s proverbial ring, with Washington now the biggest story in the world.

Bezos seemingly caught wind of this shifting tide in the weeks before the election, breaking tradition by blocking The Washington Post’s planned endorsement of Harris in late October. 

The move led to more than 250,000 readers immediately canceling their subscriptions, after which Bezos penned an op-ed defending the decision.

In it, the 60-year-old cited growing ‘distrust’ of media, saying it was the ‘principled’ and ‘right’ decision for the Post to not weigh-in. 

‘What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias,’ he wrote at the time, after decades of promoting Democrats. 

This week insiders told Status that Bezos’s paper, for which he paid a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in 2013, is set to be hit with layoffs, following a mass exodus of talent fueled in large part by Bezos and new CEO Will Lewis.

One source said the layoffs will only impact the paper’s ‘business division’, and another detailed that they ‘will be deep,’ affecting ‘dozens of employees.’

Both said they will occur sometime this week as part of an ongoing bid to cut costs before the new administration.

Similar actions were seen Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who notably refused to endorse Trump, Harris and Joe Biden in the build-up in the election. 

Asked about the matter over the summer, he instead praised Trump for surviving his then recent assassination attempt. 

‘Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,’ Zuckerberg, 40, said during an interview at Meta HQ in Menlo Park.

‘On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight,’ the Facebook founder added.

‘And I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy.’

Now, after Trump’s win, Zuckerberg – who has been accused by the president-elect of plotting against him in the 2020 election – is in the midst of acquiescing to years of GOP gripes over former policies. 

Just this morning, in a five minute video message shared to his personal Facebook profile, he admitted Meta and Facebook censored conservative opinions in years prior.

‘We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,’ he said in the self-filmed statement.

‘More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the US.’

Days before, he named UFC boss Dana White, a well-known friend of Trump’s, to Meta’s board of directors, after nixing former Lib Dem UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg as the firm’s president.

The abrupt policy upheaval from the pair of billionaires was recently satirized by a Washington Post cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, with a sketch showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money.

Present was Post owner Bezos and Mickey Mouse to represent Disney.

She said she wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize ‘billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.’ 

She quit after an editor at the paper refused to run the sketch, which was created Friday.

In December, weeks after Trump’s win, Walt Disney Co. reached a settlement in a defamation case filed by the president-elect against ABC News, after anchor George Stephanopoulos erroneously said on the air that Trump had been found ‘liable for rape’ in a New York civil trial.

The Disney-owned outlet afterwards faced accusations of caving to the conservative, a common theme ahead of his looming second presidency.

Melania is now capitalizing as well, after insiders told News Nation that her October autobiography, despite sitting atop the Amazon bestseller list, did not see her paid an advance.

In comparison, fellow former First Lady Hillary Clinton made $8 million of her memoir in advance – and another $5 million in royalties – while Michelle Obama received some $65 million along with her husband in a joint deal for their books in 2017.

Skyhorse Publishing, the company behind the 198-page memoir – which costs ($250 for a collector’s edition, $150 for a signed copy and $40 for a regular – reportedly asked CNN to pay $250,000 for an interview before the book’s release.

CNN, in October, said it received the request and had agreed, before Skyhorse circled back to claim the request was a mistake.

Beforehand, the book publisher asked CNN and any staffers who worked on the interview to sign an NDA that would entitle Melania or the publisher to damages of ‘$100,000’ for any breach.

Skyhorse still claims the request was sent as sent in error, despite the desired $250,000 being consistent with other appearances Melania has made in 2024.

Early on in the year, she unveiled a necklace and non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Solana blockchain – another business venture.

Promoting the project, called Her Love & Gratitude, at the time, she revealed how each digital creation features a gold flower pendant that can be engraved with up to 12 characters. It retails for $245. 

‘Being a mother is one of the most important roles in life. For this Mother’s Day, I have designed the Her Love & Gratitude necklace to express immense gratitude and honor all mothers,’ she said in the statement on April 21.

Moreover, it was not the first NFT-related release for the former model, who also unveiled a set of creations called the Head of State Collection and   a 1776 Collection for the Fourth of July. 

Neither of the projects performed, however, with The Head of State Collection originally selling for over $180,000 but since plummeting in cost,

Her husband, also involved in NFTs, has fared much better, released NFTs bearing his name, image and likeness for months, including Trump Digital Trading Cards. 

The collection features 45,000 NFTs that were initially sold for $99 each. Today they are worth more than five times that. 

Moreover, Akrham intelligence – a cryptocurrency company – recently discovered some of the contents of Trump’s crypto wallet, which has received over 1,800 Ethereum (ETH). The portfolio is worth several million dollars. 

 The president-elect, in an interview with Time magazine for being its Person of the Year, confirmed the first lady is set to return to the White House with him this month after spending the past several weeks in New York, where their son Barron attends New York University.  

He pointed to how active she was in the final weeks of his presidential campaign.

‘She was, she was very, she actually became very active towards the end, as you saw with interviews. And she does—she does them well. People really watch. She’s very beloved by the people, Melania,’ Trump noted.

Melania was seen promoting her memoir in those interviews.

Within a week of her husband’s win, she unveiled a digital photo collection showcasing her ‘dynamic life,’ which she is currently selling for $195-a-pop.

‘On the Move is an exclusive collection of 16 digital images,’ the former and future first lady’s office said November 12 in an announcement. 

The snapshots, she said, show her ‘in various settings — from her office, on the campaign trail, and at her home… offer[ing] a poignant glimpse into [her] fast-moving life.’

They are being sold through her personal website, with black-and-white image promoting the digital collection showing the former model holding a pair of sunglasses while standing directly in front of a plane.

‘I am pleased to share my journey – through photographs – with fans and collectors,’ she wrote in her statement.