Melania Trump has thrown her stepson under the bus over a report revealing that his Bahamas wedding was heavily funded by a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.
A spokesman for the first lady tells the Daily Mail she has no relationship with Umar Kremlev, who allegedly shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for Don Jr.’s wedding to Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, 39, in May, according to a ProPublica investigation.
“Mrs. Trump does not, and has never had, a relationship with Mr. Kremlev,” a spokesperson told the Mail. “Mrs. Trump played no role whatsoever in organizing the wedding event and was not privy to any aspect of its financial planning.”
The statement offered no defense for Don Jr., 48, who is the president’s eldest son.
Melania did not attend Don Jr.’s wedding to Anderson on private islands in the Bahamas. President Donald Trump, along with his youngest and only child with Melania, Barron, 20, also skipped the event.
Unlike her husband, who teeters between praising Putin and condemning his bloodthirstiness, the Slovenia-born Melania, 56, has been consistently outspoken against the Russian leader.
Melania wrote Putin a letter in August 2025, asking him to consider the suffering of children affected by his war with Ukraine. Trump reportedly hand-delivered the letter to Putin at the Alaska summit, where he literally rolled out a red carpet for him.
That same summer, Trump revealed that Melania offered him a brutal reality check that Putin was playing him with talks of peace.
Trump said in July, “I go home. I tell the first lady, ‘I spoke to Vladimir [Putin] today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said ‘oh really? Another city was just hit.’”
He added, “We thought we had a deal numerous times. I get home, I’d say, ‘first lady, I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we’re finished.’ And then I’d turn on the television, or she’ll say to me one time, ‘Well, that’s strange because they just bombed a nursing home.’”
Kremlev, 43, is the head of the International Boxing Association (IBA). He has been sanctioned over his close ties to Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Yet that did not stop Don Jr. from letting Kremlev not only rent a private island for a wedding reception, where he and Bettina had their first dance, but also let him and other Russians crash it—something ProPublica reports “puzzled” other guests.
