Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters
The Daily Mail issued a retraction early Friday of its August article that cited allegations that Melania Trump had worked as a sex escort in Slovenia in the 1990s, hours after the wife of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump filed a $150 million lawsuit against the news-gossip site and a Maryland blogger. Trump lawyer Charles Harder had promised to take legal action over the articles, calling them “100 percent false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful.” The reports cited a Slovenian publication to claim that her former modeling agent also ran an escort business on the side, implying that Melania herself may have been involved in the side business. In a statement retracting the article, the Daily Mail said it “regrets any such misinterpretation,” “did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations” were true. The editors note stated the article was published because the mere existence of the rumors could potentially hurt her husband’s presidential campaign, “even if they were untrue.” Maryland blogger Webster Griffin Tarpley was also named in the lawsuit for a similar report, as well as claims Melania Trump suffered “a full-blown nervous breakdown” in the 1990s. “Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious, and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million,” Trump’s lawyer said in a statement Thursday.