Director Brett Ratner spent 20 days shooting Melania Trump then trimmed the footage down to a running time of an hour and 44 minutes—only ten minutes shorter than Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.
The trailer of Melania: Twenty Days to History promises audiences that they will “witness history in the makng” while offering tantalizing glimpses of the first lady cooing over oversized red envelopes and contemplating her image in a mirror.
Propaganda depends on presenting a curated image so, obviously, any scenes of the first lady looking less than glamorous were ditched. So what didn’t make the cut?
Here are 15 scenes that you will not see in this “MUST WATCH” movie (according to her husband.)
1.Sitting alone in her pink Mar-a-Lago tower, Melania flosses her teeth while singing along to Taylor Swift’s “this is me trying” from Folklore before breaking down into sobs as she gets to the lyric “I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere/Fell behind all my classmates, and I ended up here.”
Reason cut: Difficult to secure rights to song since the first lady’s husband posted: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” in 2024.
2.At the Naval Observatory a few months ago, Melania sneaks into the second lady’s bathroom and replaces Usha Vance’s birth control pills with tic tacs. So fun! Who knew the first lady was such a prankster?
Reason cut: Raises legal issues and currently only the President has total immunity.
3. In a steamy locker room shower, Melania and Mark Carney recreate their favorite scene from Heated Rivalry. She plays “Ivan” (the hockey player with the thick Eastern European accent) and he’s “Shane,” the squeaky-clean Canadian phenom. Their love is forbidden but the sexual attraction is undeniable.
Reason cut: Tariffs.
4. Practicing acceptance speech in the mirror for Best Documentary Film from FIFA.
Reason cut: She might decide to bully Ken Burns into giving her one of his actual Oscars.
5.On the beach, burning the cord she used to strangle Jeffrey Epstein in a bonfire.
Reason cut: Blows the first lady’s cover as a trained assassin.
6. Spending twenty minutes on The New York Times Spelling Bee before finding a word.
Reason cut: Too nerdy.
7.Taping an Orwellian video for 5-year olds being held in Detention Centers where she intones over and over, “Be Best.”
Reason cut: Her hair looked flat in the video.
8.Visiting Fort Knox and leaving with a visibly weighed-down pocketbook.
Reason cut: Not news-y. What first lady doesn’t help herself to a few bricks of gold?
9.Watching K-Pop Demon Hunters and practicing the soda pop dance.
Reason cut: Amazon did not want to promote a Netflix movie.
10. At the pharmacy buying men’s adult diapers XL with odor guard.
Reason cut: Not glamorous enough.
11.Pushing Ivana Trump down the stairs of her Upper East Side townhouse in 2022.
Reason cut: Blows the first lady’s cover as a trained assassin.
12. Stress-eating mice (not the rodent, but the traditional Slovenian dessert of sweet fried dough with a mouse-like shape)
Reason cut: Not right for the doc, but perfect for Tiktok as a “Melania Mukbang”
13.Planning a “very special funeral” that may–or may not–happen soon.
Reason cut: Saving for the sequel.
14. A quiet moment between the first lady and the president in bed where she settles in his arms and coos, “I’m so happy.”
Reason cut: Even with dimmed lighting, it was obvious that the woman in bed was Fake Melania.
15. Archival footage from Slovenia of a 16-year old Melania wishing on a dessicated monkey’s paw to one day become a world-famous movie star.
Reason cut: Scared little children (and Eric Trump) in test screening.
