First Lady Melania Trump just scored a major victory against the liberal media. The Daily Beast was forced to issue a public apology to Melania Trump and retracted a fake article that falsely alleged she was introduced to President Donald Trump through a modeling agent connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The left-leaning outlet acknowledged that the story, which relied on unsubstantiated allegations by controversial journalist Michael Wolff, did not meet editorial standards. The article was initially pulled in July after Melania Trump’s attorneys challenged the publication with legal threats over the false claims.
“Upon reflection, we have determined that the article did not meet our standards and has therefore been removed from our platforms,” The Daily Beast said in an editor’s note. “In response to a letter from the First Lady’s attorneys, The Daily Beast has also removed a portion of an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast titled ‘Trump’s Epstein Scandal Can’t Stop Won’t Stop’ referencing the First Lady.”
“The First Lady points to her best-selling book Melania as the definitive account of her life story. We apologize to the First Lady and our readers.”
Melania Trump shared the outlet’s apology on X with the caption “Retraction & Apology from The Daily Beast.”
Retraction & Apology from The Daily Beast pic.twitter.com/WINb5r9wpN
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) September 15, 2025
The original article, headlined “Melania Trump ‘Very Involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author,” was based on an interview with Wolff. During the interview, Wolff made unfounded claims about the First Lady’s connection to the disgraced pedophile financier who died in 2019.
“[Melania] was very involved in this Epstein relationship. There is this model thing, and she’s introduced by a model agent, both of whom Trump and Epstein are involved with. She’s introduced to Trump that way,” Wolff alleged without providing evidence. “Epstein knows her well.”
Trump criticized Wolff earlier this year as a “Third Rate Reporter … laughed at even by the scoundrels of the Fake News.”
Wolff’s reporting has long faced scrutiny from journalists across the political spectrum. In 2018, the author claimed to have evidence that Trump was having an affair and suggested that clues to the alleged mistress’s identity could be found in his White House tell-all “Fire and Fury.”
Readers identified passages that seemed to implicate then-United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Haley called the insinuation “disgusting” and “highly offensive.”
In a subsequent interview on “Morning Joe,” Wolff denied insinuating Haley was having an affair with Trump, but then said he “found it puzzling that she would deny something she was not accused of.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski accused him of “having fun… slurring a woman” and ended the interview abruptly.
Multiple figures in Trump’s orbit have denied making quotes attributed to them in “Fire and Fury.”
The Daily Beast retraction represents part of a broader legal campaign by Melania Trump’s attorneys against outlets and individuals spreading Wolff’s false claims. Democratic strategist James Carville was forced to publicly apologize and scrub an episode of his “Politics War Room” podcast last month after suggesting an “Epstein connection” involving the First Lady.
Melania’s legal team has also threatened to sue Hunter Biden for “over $1 billion dollars” for “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” suggesting the First Lady was introduced to the president by Epstein. Hunter made the remarks, citing Wolff, in an interview on the YouTube show “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan.”
The false allegations contradict Melania Trump’s own account of how she met her husband. In her 2024 memoir, Melania explained that she met Trump at a September 1998 Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Klub in New York City.
Trump sat down next to his future wife and started a conversation, Melania recalled in the book.
“I found myself drawn to his magnetic energy,” she wrote.
The couple got engaged six years later and married in 2005.