A month ago, Melania arrived to the 2026 movies schedule to point the spotlight on First Lady Melania Trump in a cinematic setting. The Brett Ratner-directed documentary from Amazon MGM Studios hasn’t lacked in controversy, and that includes how its soundtrack came together. The latest update on that front is that a bunch of musical artists turned down their music being featured in Melania, which one of the producers described as a “disappointment.”
Marc Beckman, who is also one of Melania Trump’s advisors, spoke with Variety about his work on the movie. Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” is one of the songs prominently featured in Melania, with it apparently being one of President Donald Trump’s wife’s favorite tunes. When the publication asked Beckman if that was the song that was most challenging to license for the documentary, he answered:
So in the cases of bands, if all of the members don’t sign off on the song in question being used in a movie or TV show, then it’s game over. So Melania Trump, Marc Beckman and the rest of the Melania team had to make peace with not using the unidentified “Guns N’ Roses” song, and the same went for a different song from solo artist Grace Jones. As Beckman explained:
Other songs prominently featured in Melania include The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” But, to borrow another song title from The Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want, and it just didn’t work out with The Rolling Stones and Grace Jones. Marc Beckman also mentioned during the interview that Melania came close to using one of Prince’s songs, but the late musician’s estate allegedly put the kibosh on that because, according to the lawyer who spoke with the documentary’s team, “Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.”