High‑profile US television journalist Katie Couric has publicly ridiculed Melania Trump's big-budget documentary Melania, leaving a withering, one-word verdict on social media that neatly captures the hostile critical reception the film has faced since its January release on Amazon.
Reacting to a viral clip from the $40 million (£29.82 million) Amazon MGM Studios project, the veteran broadcaster summed up her view with a single, unmistakably sarcastic word: 'riveting'.
Melania Documentary Meets A Frosty Reception
Couric's one‑word review arrived on 19 March after a clip from Melania surfaced on Threads. The snippet shows the former model riding in a car, singing along to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean as the camera lingers on her profile and designer surroundings.
Underneath the video, Couric, 69, simply posted: 'riveting'. No lengthy explanation, no extended thread.
If Couric's comment was brief, professional critics have been anything but. In a zero‑star review, The Guardian's Xan Brooks called Melania a 'gilded trash remake' of Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, a comparison that suggests a hollow, ornamental take on serious subject matter. He went further, arguing the film had 'no redeeming quality' and questioning whether it even qualified as a documentary.
'I'm not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice‑cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne,' Brooks wrote.
In The New Yorker, Lauren Collins was similarly unsparing, describing Melania as resembling 'an OnlyFans account crossed with that meme of Kim Jong Un visiting factories'.
Collins concluded that the documentary succeeds only in presenting Melania exactly as she appears to want to be seen. In her words, 'Melania portrays Melania in exactly the way she wants to be seen: as rigid, formal, solitary, dourly materialistic; surrounded by lackeys drafted into the closest thing to intimacy that she seems able to access; grinding through bot-like voice-overs filled with awkward gerunds and stilted exposition.'
As of this reporting, nothing in the cited source indicates any formal response from Melania Trump or her team to Couric's jab or to these reviews.
The film has been widely panned by reviewers and has struggled commercially. According to the figures cited in the reporting, Melania earned $7 million (£5.22 million) at the box office in its opening weekend, and finishing third. It then added another $7 million (£5.22 million) in its second weekend, for a global gross of $14 million (£10.44 million) against a reported $40 million (£29.82 million) budget from Amazon MGM Studios.
Donald Trump Praises 'Melania' As Critics And Katie Couric Pile On
The harsh reviews are at odds with how Donald Trump has chosen to talk about the film in public. The US president, now 79, has leaned into the idea that Melania has elevated his wife into a new kind of celebrity.
Speaking on 9 March at a retreat for House Republicans in Florida, he reportedly told attendees that the documentary had turned the former First Lady into a 'movie star'. 'She's got the biggest... Can you believe this? That movie was hot and it is hot. She became a movie star,' he said, before adding, 'It was a good movie.'
The FLOTUS and the POTUS stepped out for a date night at the Kennedy Center on 29 January to attend the premiere of her documentary. Directed by Brett Ratner, the film offers viewers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the three weeks leading up to her husband's second inauguration.
