Saturday Night Live used its Weekend Update desk to deride the new Melania Trump documentary, even stooping to mock the first ladys accent in front of a cheering studio crowd.
According to the New York Post, co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che snickered like a couple of hyenas as they targeted the theatrical release of Melania, which follows the 20 days leading up to President Trumps second inauguration. Jost opened the bit by declaring, This week a documentary about Melania Trump debuted in theaters. Its titled Wicked: For Real, a jab framed as a play on the Broadway hit Wicked: For Good.
Behind the anchors, producers flashed a green-tinted parody poster showing the first lady seated and staring into the camera, visually reinforcing the wicked smear. The segment then shifted from political mockery to personal ridicule, as the hosts took aim at the Slovenian-born first ladys accent and English proficiency.
Melania was directed by Rush Hour director, Brett Ratner which explains this scene, Jost continued, before cutting to an edited clip from the 1998 action-comedy. In the doctored footage, Chris Tucker turns to a superimposed Melania Trump in place of Jackie Chan and demands, do you speak-a any English? Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
The documentary marks Ratners first feature since multiple women accused him in 2017 of sexual harassment and sexual assault, allegations he has denied. He also surfaced in several images in the Epstein files, including a photo with Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modeling agent accused of scouting girls for Jeffrey Epstein and later found dead in his Paris prison cell in 2022.
Despite the late-night derision and Ratners controversial history, the film has drawn substantial commercial interest. Amazon reportedly paid $75 million for distribution rights to Melania, which earned more than $7 million in its opening weekend, the strongest documentary debut in a decade and a reminder that audiences remain deeply engaged with the Trump era despite Hollywoods relentless attempts to belittle it.
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