Jimmy Kimmel Finally Watches ‘Melania’ and Slams It: ‘Terribly Boring’
Jimmy Kimmel spent a lot of time talking about Melania Trump in January during the theatrical release of her panned documentary “Melania,” but now he’s actually seen the Brett Ratner-directed film. “Melania” began streaming on Amazon Prime Video on March 9. Kimmel told his late viewers during his March 10 monologue that he had finally seen the documentary, joking, “Between this and ‘Sinners,’ it’s been a big year for vampire movies.”
“While some might say it’s not a good idea to support your vanity project while your husband is bombing another country, Melania has never cared much about optics,” Kimmel continued. “She can’t even pronounce optics. Most of all, this documentary is terribly boring. The whole thing is about Melania going to fittings, driving a car, trying on clothes and interviewing people to work for her.”
Kimmel showed a clip from “Melania” in which Donald Trump calls his wife to tell her that he has secured a second term as president after the 2024 election. Melania congratulates Donald, but informs him that she did not watch the election results in real time.
“You should really try to watch it,” Donald tells his wife, who replies, “I’ll see it. Yes, I’ll see it on the news.”
Kimmel responded to the images by saying: “[This is] one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever heard. It almost makes me feel a little sorry. She doesn’t care at all.”
The ABC late-night host has been critical of “Melania” since before the documentary opened, when he ripped the film as a “$75 million bribe” that “Amazon paid for her.” The host went on to tout the film’s $7 million box office debut, saying, “It set a record. It was the biggest opening for a non-musical vanity project/brazen corporate bribery in the last decade.”
Kimmel later turned his attention to Melania’s reviews, which were largely negative compared to the overwhelming audience scores.
“As of tonight, ‘Melania’ has a 5% Rotten Tomatoes rating from critics. That’s very low,” Kimmel said. “To put that in perspective, that’s 1% lower than ‘Gigli.’ The audience score for ‘Melania’ is 99% positive, which is 1% higher than ‘The Godfather.’ And I’m sure Donald J. Corleone had nothing to do with that at all.’
The film’s ratings led to theories that MAGA-backed bots inflated the score, prompting Rotten Tomatoes’ parent company Versant to release a statement denying such claims.
“There was no bot manipulation on the audience reviews for the documentary ‘Melania,’” Versant said in a statement Variety. “The reviews shown on Popcorn Meter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning users have been verified as having purchased a ticket to the movie.”
Watch Kimmel’s full monologue in the video below.
