Jimmy Kimmel has eviscerated Melania Trump’s new documentary that independent critics almost universally agree is really, really bad.
“Melania, the movie, with a budget of $75 million, made $7 million over the weekend,” the late-night host told viewers Monday.
“It set a record,” he went on. “It was the biggest opening for a non-musical-vanity-project-slash-brazen-corporate-bribe in ten years.”
Backed by pro-Trump tech billionaire Jeff Bezos and produced by accused sex pest Brett Ratner, reviewers have variously described the film as “a cheeseball infomercial of staggering inertia,” a “ghastly bit of propaganda,” and a “gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest.”
One critic described the viewing experience as “inducing narcolepsy,” another as “two hours of endless hell.”
Other adjectives—like “vapid,” “lifeless,” “exhausting,” “pointless,” “hollow,” “patinated,” “empty,” “flat,” “insipid” and “shameless”—have also been used.
Melania currently holds a 7 percent rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That’s worse than Tom Hooper’s 2019 screen adaptation of Cats, widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made.
In the days since its release, MAGA has gone on the defensive.
“Last night I saw, ‘MELANIA,’ for the second time. The audience loved it, and so do I,” President Donald Trump wrote in a statistically improbable Truth Social post this week, urging his followers to buy tickets.
“Check it out,” he wrote. “‘A MUST SEE!’”
Those sentiments have been echoed over at Fox News. Kimmel played a clip Monday night of network host Kayleigh McEnany, a former Trump press secretary, singing the film’s praises.
“Melania should be nominated for an Oscar,” McEnany said. “And if she were to go, she’d be the best dressed, the classiest dressed, by a long shot.”
Kimmel offered to personally host those awards should the first lady find herself nominated in another, less fictional category.
He added there may be another prize for which Melania Trump is more likely to find herself on a very short shortlist.
“You know how this ends, right?” the comedian said. “This ends with Melania winning the first-ever FIFA Best Actress award.”
The soccer organization’s president, MAGA ally Gianni Infantino, awarded Donald Trump FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize late last year. The honor did not exist prior to the MAGA leader being snubbed for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Melania Trump’s representatives for comment on this story.
