Melania Trump is releasing a documentary about herself, an exciting new development for political plus-ones, for the powers-behind, for the iron fists in the opera-length Dior gloves, the little women at home and of course the little men, too.
Ed Balls, husband of Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, has his lasagne recipes, dad skills and coveted spot on ITV‘s Good Morning Britain sofa.
SamCam has her frocks. Madame Macron has her happy slappy skills. There were times when Michelle Obama seemed even more powerful and capable than husband Barack.
However, can any of them match the sheer star power of America’s two-time and current First Lady? Not a chance.
As part of a £30 million deal with Amazon MGM, ‘Melania’ will open in US cinemas – cinemas! – next month and promises to reveal exactly what it takes to be America’s First Lady.
Multiple pairs of designer sunglasses and lots of expensive shoes seems to be the answer, judging by the trailer released this week.
Melania is filmed stalking around the White House, getting on and off planes, sitting at a desk and talking the language of international diplomatic guff to some poor sap hanging on her every word.
As part of a £30 million deal with Amazon MGM, ‘Melania’ will open in US cinemas – cinemas! – next month and promises to reveal exactly what it takes to be America’s First Lady
‘Together with like-minded leaders we have a voice,’ she says, which doesn’t even make sense unless she is organising a campfire singsong for local Scout troops. She is the one-woman Real Housewife of Washington, a legend on her own Lear jet, a woman who is apparently not afraid to chastise her husband in a roomful of aides.
‘My proudest legacy will be that of peacemaker,’ chuntered the President in one clip, before his wife corrected him. ‘Peacemaker and unifier,’ she insisted.
It is hard to think of what President Trump has unified in America, except his own reputation as a violently divisive figure.
Perhaps Melania was actually saying ‘Peacemaker and Lucifer’? Sometimes her delicious Slavic accent, proudly uncut and unpolished after three decades in America, is hard to comprehend.
Who on earth is going to buy a ticket to see this contrived hunk of puffery, this no-warts-at-all blazing comet of Melania marketing?
Me for a start. I just can’t get enough of this woman, surely one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures on the planet.
Look at her! Inscrutable, immaculate, immutable. The hats, the heels, the hair. The perfect ankles. The incomparable wardrobe.
Most intriguing of all is the terse and flippant way she treats her husband on the world stage; refusing to hold his eager hand on multiple public occasions, often giving him more frost than an alpine avalanche.
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Most intriguing of all is the terse and flippant way she treats her husband on the world stage; refusing to hold his eager hand on multiple public occasions, often giving him more frost than an alpine avalanche
Melania has few admirers. Many argue she is complicit in her husband’s actions, despite the fact that she is clearly a hands-off First Lady, perhaps in every sense you care to mention
From Mar-a-Lago to Trump Tower to the White House, she is always the one with the regal and presidential air, not him. President Trump might be the most powerful man in the world, yet within their relationship, the power is all hers.
For Melania does things her way. She doesn’t play the game. You might imagine that feminists would sneakily admire her independent spirit, along with her rejection of the traditional, submissive First Lady role.
Yet, despite defending abortion rights and her estimable work to help Ukrainian children displaced during the war, she has few admirers.
Many argue she is complicit in her husband’s actions, despite the fact that she is clearly a hands-off First Lady, perhaps in every sense you care to mention.
Yet the latitude accorded to first spouses throughout history, such as Jackie Kennedy and Pat Nixon and even Denis Thatcher, somehow does not apply to Melania.
The Trump legacy is so toxic that she is guilty by association, perhaps even reviled. And that seems unfair.
The documentary seems to suggest that she is willing to poke fun at herself, but what really goes on behind that beautiful facade of hers, as impenetrable as a stucco White House wall? Anything? Nothing?
Are we witnessing the cool, detached machinations of a brilliant political brain with a wry sense of humour – or is her mind the airy prairie of sheer Barbie vacuity that her critics suggest?
Yet what elevates her from First Lady on to a celestial plane for me is that she just doesn’t appear to give a damn. She’s in the I-Don’t-Care-Club and good for her.
In one scene she is seen speaking to Trump on the phone after he has won the election. She appears to be deep inside a golden bathroom somewhere but the fact that she is not at her husband’s side on this momentous occasion is fabulous in itself. Maybe she needed a gel manicure or a nap? She is a busy woman!
As if she were talking to a lowly aide on her team who’d just won an inter-departmental table tennis tournament she says: ‘Hi, Mr President. Congratulations.’
Trump replies, excited as a schoolboy. ‘Did you watch it?’
Of course she didn’t watch it.
‘I did not. Yeah, I will see it on the news,’ she says, dismissively.
Yet, if she doesn’t care what her husband thinks of her, why should she be bothered with your opinion?
According to the Wall Street Journal, Melania is set to make about £20 million from this show, which will eventually be streamed on Amazon Prime. Is it all about the grift? Or is it something else?
It was interesting that Donald and Melania’s son Barron appeared more than once in the ‘Melania’ trailer, ominously looming about, ready to claim his political and public inheritance.
Perhaps the truth is that proud mother Melania was not burnishing her own legacy but paving the way for President Trump II.
Still we’ve come a long way since Norma Major decided to improve her public image by giving a magazine interview – then was promptly ridiculed for revealing she grated left-over cheese and kept it in an ice cream container in her freezer.
However, things were different back in 1996. Today she would be applauded as a thrifty Nigella, an inspiration, a domestic saint.
In comparison, the only thing ice queen Melania has ever grated has been her husband’s nerves. And you have to love her for that.
You just sound rude, Kate
Jude Law, Cameron Diaz (top), Kate Winslet and Jack Black (above) in Christmas favourite The Holiday
Every year at this time, Kate Winslet has to dodge shoppers in Waitrose. For everyone is watching and loving The Holiday all over again and wants to worship at the feet of Winslet, who starred alongside Jude Law, Cameron Diaz and Jack Black (pictured with her) in the winning Nancy Meyers Christmas romcom.
‘It is always mothers and daughters,’ said Winslet.
‘They will come to me and they’ll say, ‘Is it you?’ And I’ll say, ‘I think it might be me’. And then they say, ‘We just have to say, our favourite film…’ And I’m thinking, ‘Bless you. You think that you’re the only people for whom this is a ritual.’ ‘
Bless us indeed, Kate.
I’m sure that the Oscar-winning actress doesn’t mean to sound so rude but she just can’t help herself sometimes.
Anyway, I watched it again the other night. And it is as fabulous and unlikely and unbelievable and wonderful as ever.
Marxist Andrea Egan has been elected as general secretary of Unison, ousting the more moderate Christina McAnea. Already Miss Egan has ominously pledged to ‘stand up to any employer or politician who acts against our interests’.
Jeremy Corbyn, whose new socialist Your Party has been praised by Ms Egan, congratulated her on her appointment by saying: ‘See you on the picket line.’
Dear God. In the week that militant doctors launched a five-day walkout in England, the spectre of yet more industrial action is the last thing we need.
How much longer before we are plunged into power cuts and the three-day weeks of the 1970s? Jeremy C might be thrilled, but the rest of us are doomed.
Book about healing to melt your heart this Christmas
If you are looking for a Christmas book present for a little one, may I recommend The Dog With No Fur by Michela Carbosiero, published by Foreshore Children’s Books.
Beautifully illustrated (by Andjela Vujic), it features a little dog called Leo who is born with no fur, making him look very different from all his doggy friends.
Leo wants to fit in but he is teased and misunderstood. This makes him sad until he discovers he doesn’t need to be like everyone else to be happy.
So far, so enchanting. But what makes this book special is the journey Michela Carbosiero embarked upon, too. For being born into a happy, wealthy middle-class family did not spare her from the difficulties of severe mental health problems.
If you are looking for a Christmas book present for a little one, may I recommend The Dog With No Fur by Michela Carbosiero
At the age of seven, Michela developed OCD which led to an eating disorder. At 13, she was an inpatient in the Priory. After being discharged for the first time, she struggled with more OCD, self-harming and attempted to take her life several times. At 16, she was back in the Priory. Another suicide attempt by overdose followed.
She eventually started to get better after attending the Chelsea Community Hospital School, run by Janette Steel.
‘They were so kind, they gave me such confidence, they took me to bookshops and encouraged me to write,’ says Michela.
She is now 22, happy, a successful author and passionate mental health advocate.
In this week of all weeks, it is heartening to know troubled children can and do recover and heal.
‘That is the message I want to get across,’ she says.
The Dog With No Fur was inspired by Michela’s own dog, a Pomeranian with alopecia.
‘I wanted to write about him because he was different, just like me,’ she says, in her inspiring way.
Congratulations to all. And I’d just like to wish Leo, Michela and all my readers a very Merry Christmas.
I love fashion, even if fashion doesn’t love me back. Yet, despite this, I find Emily In Paris utterly unwatchable.
Spare me from this bunch of witless beanpoles running around France in painfully trendy clothes and silly hats, saying things such as, ‘we’re on the precipice of the rest of our lives’. Make it stop!
I find Emily In Paris (starring Lily Collins, left, and Ashley park) utterly unwatchable
This Netflix show almost makes me think fondly of Sex And The City. However, I do know a real fashion moment when I see one – and Apple Martin wearing her mother Gwyneth’s 1996 Calvin
Klein black gown this week was a great moment.
Look at that scoop neck with the thin back straps and the killer cut – they just don’t make dresses like this any more. And nepo baby Apple did it proud.
Come on Grinches. Admit it. She looked fabulous.
There is no mistaking what people are really chanting when they cry ‘globalise the intifada’.
The Met Police is right to make arrests for those who advocate on British streets for murder of Jewish people. If only the BBC – which still sees intifada as a positive word – would follow suit and accept what is actually being said here.
