Alleging that she suffered a “full-blown nervous breakdown” because of claims made in the Daily Mail, first lady Melania Trump is suing the news outlet’s New York headquarters for $150 million. Trump filed her third lawsuit against the Daily MailMonday for an August 2016 article that accused her of working as a high-end escort — defamatory statements Trump claims ruined a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”to cash in on her star power while her husband is in office. RELATED: First lady Melania Trump may never move into the White House: Report Trump “had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former profesional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world,” the suit alleges, adding that among the products Melania could have promoted include apparel, accessories, cosmetics, jewelry and fragrance.
The online article, “Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won’t go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife,” published on Aug. 20, has since been retracted. The United Kingdom-based Daily Mail and its website, Mail Online, headquartered in New York City, said the article “did not intend to state or suggest” its allegations were true.
“The point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue,” the news outlet wrote in its lengthy retraction.
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Still, Trump has filed several lawsuits against the company with attorney Charles Harder, who represented Hulk Hogan against Gawker.
Her first suits came against a political blogger and the Daily Mail in Maryland, but a judge tossed the latter over jurisdiction. The suit against Webster Griffin Tarpley, who runs Tarpley.net, will move forward later this year.
The first lady has also sued the Daily Mail newspaper in the United Kingdom for a version of the story that ran in print, titled “Racy photos, and troubling questions about his wife’s past that could derail Trump.”
