Newspaper apologizes to Melania Trump, pays “substantial” damages

Britain’s Telegraph newspaper has apologized to First Lady Melania Trump for a cover story it ran last Saturday titled “The Mystery of Melania”. An apology for an article filled with false information against Mrs. Trump is unusual enough. Add into the equation that the newspaper has also paid “substantial” damages plus legal fees and we have a bit of a story here.

The newspaper said Saturday it apologizes “unreservedly” to Mrs. Trump and her family for any embarrassment caused by the content of a cover story published Jan. 19 in the newspaper’s weekly magazine supplement.

“As a mark of our regret we have agreed to pay Mrs. Trump substantial damages as well as her legal costs,” The Telegraph said. The newspaper did not disclose the size of the settlement with Mrs. Trump.

The Telegraph said it falsely characterized Mrs. Trump’s father’s personality, falsely reported the reasons she left an architecture program, and falsely reported her career as a model was unsuccessful before she met Donald Trump.

But, wait, that’s not all. Also included from the article in the Washington Post:

“We accept that Mrs. Trump was a successful professional model in her own right before she met her husband and obtained her own modeling work without his assistance,” the newspaper said, also acknowledging it had incorrectly reported the year when the couple first met.

“The claim that Mrs. Trump cried on election night is also false,” The Telegraph said.

It also retracted the statement that Mrs. Trump’s father, mother, and sister had relocated to New York in 2005 to live in buildings owned by Trump.

The Telegraph is a leading British newspaper and is widely considered to lean conservative but you’d not know that from this hit piece on America’s First Lady. It sure sounds like the goal was to portray Mrs. Trump as a gold-digging slut and for added embellishment dragging her family into the mix. I’d like to know how much this cost the newspaper but it’s being kept quiet. Her legal fees are included.

We apologise unreservedly to The First Lady and her family for any embarrassment caused by our publication of these allegations. As a mark of our regret we have agreed to pay Mrs Trump substantial damages as well as her legal costs.

The story about Melania was the cover story of the weekend magazine publication of the newspaper. Maybe they thought a grocery store tabloid-style piece was appropriate but clearly, Melania Trump didn’t agree. I mean, crying on election night? That was meant to imply her unhappiness, no doubt, but wouldn’t it be rationally assumed her tears, if she actually did cry, were from joy? I’d assume she was happy that her husband won the presidency, especially since she has always taken credit for encouraging him to run for the office in the first place.

Try as they may, Melania Trump will not stand by and allow others to attack her and her family. The left, especially the feminist left, like to claim that Melania is an unhappy woman, trapped in the White House and suffering silently. I would argue the opposite. She has shown over and over again that she has a mind of her own and is not afraid to pursue her own interests. Her top responsibility, as she often says, is as a mother to Barron and I assume she pursues correcting the record with publications out of her concern for him.

This is not the first time Melania has successfully gone after a publication that ran a hit piece on her. In 2017, she settled a libel lawsuit against the Daily Mail. That settlement included a monetary award, too.

Melania Trump is doing just fine. The latest update for the Washington press so concerned about not seeing much of her recently was posted in a tweet Friday. #BeBest

Our work in the East wing continues into 2019 with online safety, fighting opioid abuse & supporting the well-being of children everywhere! #BeBest pic.twitter.com/4TayvDP0y4

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) January 26, 2019