Amazon said Sunday that its Prime Video streaming service will release a “behind-the-scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life.
The film will be available in theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime later this year, the company said. Mrs. Trump will be an executive producer of the documentary, which began filming in December, a month after her husband, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.
“We’re excited to share this truly unique story,” Amazon said.
Its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the company and The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with President Trump during his first term as president. But in recent months, Amazon and Bezos have taken steps to fix it. Last month, the tech giant said it would donate $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund and would write a check to the founding committee, along with executives from Meta and other Silicon Valley companies. Mr. Bezos said he was “very optimistic” about President Trump’s new term and wanted to work with the administration to ease regulations.
During his first term as president, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Bezos for his newspaper’s political reporting and questioned whether the U.S. Postal Service was charging Amazon too little for shipping. In response, Amazon accused President Trump of putting “improper pressure” on the Department of Defense to reject the company’s cloud computing contract.
Amazon now seems eager to turn the page.
Last October, The Post said it would stop endorsing presidential candidates, a decision made by Bezos, and did not announce an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, which had already been drafted. Mr. Bezos defended his decision, saying the newspaper’s endorsement “creates a perception of bias.”
Last week, Post cartoonist Anne Telnaes said she was resigning after the newspaper’s opinion section rejected a cartoon showing Bezos and three other tech executives handing a bag to President-elect Trump and kneeling at a Trump statue. money. David Shipley, The Post’s opinion editor, said the cartoon was rejected because the section ran a column on the same topic and had already scheduled another column for publication. He said he had asked Mr Telnaes to withdraw his resignation, saying “the only prejudice was that of repetition”.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the company’s and Mr. Bezos’ efforts to forge a closer relationship with President Trump. Trump’s transition team also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mrs. Trump has recently shown more willingness to share details about her life with the public. Last year, she published a memoir detailing her career as a model, her marriage to President Trump, and her time in the White House. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her role as executive producer of the documentary suggests she will have some influence on how her life is portrayed.
Brett Ratner, director and producer of films such as ‘Rush Hour’ and ‘The Revenant’, will direct the documentary. Mr. Ratner has kept a low profile in recent years after questions arose about his behavior. In 2011, he resigned as co-executive producer of the Oscars broadcast after using anti-gay slurs at a public event. In a 2017 article published by the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Ratner was accused by six women of sexual harassment, claims he denied.
Amazon, which will have exclusive rights to the film about Mrs. Trump, said it would release more details about the project once filming gets underway and release plans are finalized.
