Melania director Brett Ratner was confronted about reports that some crew members on his controversial film asked not to be credited for their work at the film’s premiere at the Kennedy Center on Thursday evening.
One person familiar with the film’s production said that two-thirds of the film’s New York crew—it filmed New York, D.C. and Florida—asked not to be formally credited on the film, according to a Rolling Stone report published on Monday.
Asked about the report at the film’s premiere, Ratner said the movie “picked up a lot of crew” in various states, whom he labelled “day players” and who weren’t his “main crew.”
He could also be seen snapping at a person off camera, saying, “hold on, I want to answer.”
“I understand if a liberal is working on the movie and they don’t want to be credited, but they want to feed their family. I don’t blame anybody for that.”
“I don’t know who didn’t want to be a part of it, I wasn’t aware of it, but I learned about it when I read it.”
The White House and Amazon MGM Studios have been contacted for comment.
The first lady’s vanity documentary has been mired in controversy, particularly as her husband’s popularity continues to plummet as Americans respond to policies like the hardline immigration crackdown that has resulted in the shooting deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis and the abduction of residents like 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
Rolling Stone also spoke to one crew member whose name does appear in the film who now regrets that choice in the wake of the events of the first year of Trump’s second term. “I’m much more alarmed now than I was a year ago,” they said.
Others went even further, telling Rolling Stone that they hoped the movie fails.
Noting that the film required “really long hours” and that the set was “chaotic“ and “highly disorganized,” one crew member said, “Unfortunately, if it does flop, I would really feel great about it.”
While Ratner was most commonly cited as the reason that working on the film was difficult, politics were also a concern, with another crew member telling the magazine, “I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this.”
Amazon leadership also reportedly did not allow employees to opt out of working on the film for political reasons, forcing them to choose between working on the vanity project or risk losing their jobs.
Several Amazon executives, including CEO Andy Jassy, were in attendance at a private screening of the documentary held at the White House on Saturday, where they were joined by Apple CEO Tim Cook and Queen Rania of Jordan.
Ratner, best known for directing Trump’s beloved Rush Hour franchise, was accused by six women, including actress Olivia Munn, of sexual misconduct at the height of the #MeToo era.
Soon after those women came forward, Elliot Page, who starred in Ratner’s 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, shared a horrifying anecdote from set about an incident in which Ratner outed him.
“I was eighteen years old. He looked at a woman standing next to me, ten years my senior, pointed to me and said: ‘You should fuck her to make her realize she’s gay.’ I was a young adult who had not yet come out to myself. I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak. I felt violated when this happened,” Page wrote. His story was corroborated by his co-star, Anna Paquin.
Ratner was also one of the many famous faces spotted in photographs released as part of the Epstein files last month. In the photo, he can be seen hugging Jean-Luc Brunel, the French model scout who was accused of supplying girls to Jeffrey Epstein.
Ratner has denied any wrongdoing.
Melania is the first film he has directed since being ousted from Hollywood. He is also slated to direct Rush Hour 4 after Trump demanded that Paramount owner Larry Ellison reboot his favorite franchise.
