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Allegations Surface: Military Coercion Boosted Melania Trump Documentary Box Office
Reports are emerging that the box office performance of the documentary “Melania” may have been artificially inflated, with claims of U.S. military personnel being pressured to attend screenings. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog organization, alleges that thousands of active-duty service members were “pressured” by their superiors to see the film’s premiere.
The $75 million Amazon film, directed by Brett Ratner-who has faced past accusations of sexual assault and harassment, which he denies, and was mentioned in the Epstein files-debuted on January 30th. The documentary, which focuses on the 2025 presidential inauguration and the First Lady’s return to office, garnered $7 million at the box office. Despite this figure, the film was widely mocked for attracting largely empty theaters and received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics.
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the MRFF, told Business Insider that his organization received multiple letters from military personnel across at least eight global facilities. These letters raised concerns that officers, described as MAGA-supporters, were issuing orders to purchase tickets for the film.
“People are scared,” Weinstein stated, emphasizing the power dynamic within the military. “They were pressured to see the movie.
Your military superior, that’s not your shift manager at Taco Bell or Starbucks. They have complete and total control over you.”
Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen obtained and reviewed one such letter, in which a service member expressed fear of punishment from their unit commanders for not attending. “Nobody that I know wanted to go except for those that did not want to get jacked up by our unit commander for not attending,” the letter, shared on Larsen’s Substack, read.
The anonymous service member further claimed that their unit commander, who sometimes wears red MAGA hats, had implicitly threatened troops who did not support the Trump administration, making his views on anti-Trump critics “very clear.” The letter also stated that viewing the film was presented as one of three “unit activity events” that military members are obligated to attend monthly for unit bonding.
“He ‘advised’ our unit members and their families to join him and his wife and children for a showing of that new documentary called ‘Melania’ at an off-base movie theater,” the letter writer claimed. “When he said ‘advised’, we know what that meant. We feel helpless to try to fight against what he is doing here.”
Weinstein warned that such coercive behavior can have a detrimental impact on military units, likening it to “injecting cancer into the body of the military unit.”
In response to these accusations, the Department of Defense issued a statement to both Business Insider and Larsen, fiercely denying the claims. The DOD stated, “[There] is no Department of War [sic] directive requiring service members to see this film, though the film is fantastic.”