“Melania Trump Says She Was Not Associated With Jeffrey Epstein”, The New York Times
Responding to what she said were smears, the first lady said she never had knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse and was not a victim of his. She called for a congressional hearing for his victims.
Reporting from the White House
April 9, 2026 Updated 6:19 p.m. ET
Melania Trump summoned reporters to the White House Thursday afternoon to give a surprise statement about Jeffrey Epstein, saying she had no relationship with him, was not a victim of his and had no knowledge of his crimes.
In remarks that lasted just under six minutes, she said she wanted to clear “my good name.” She addressed rumors about the origin story of how she met her husband, the president of the United States. And she called on Congress to give a hearing to victims of Mr. Epstein’s crimes.
“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” Mrs. Trump said. She talked about “numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me” that “have been percolating on social media for years now.”
It was not clear why she chose to speak out now, or to what reports she was referring.
A spokesperson for Mrs. Trump said the president knew that the first lady planned to make a statement, but later said it was not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of the topic of her remarks. In a phone call with an MS Now reporter, Mr. Trump said he had no prior knowledge of what she had planned to say.
The White House did not respond to questions about what the president knew on the matter and when.
The first lady’s statement is sure to supercharge a narrative that the Trump administration has been struggling to make go away since last summer, when chunks of the MAGA base broke into open revolt against Mr. Trump over his cavalier handling of the Epstein investigation.
The scandal has burbled all year, the president’s supporters refusing to move on from it no matter how many times he instructs them to. Just last week, Pam Bondi lost her job as attorney general in large part over her failure to contain the furor. She is still tangled up in it.
What Mrs. Trump said on Thursday may have been designed to clear her own good name, but it certainly won’t help the West Wing escape its Epstein troubles.
The first lady started her remarks by recalling the era when she met her husband, and, apparently, Mr. Epstein.
“Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City,” Mrs. Trump explained to the small group of stunned reporters arrayed in the entrance hall of the White House. The first time she ever “crossed paths with Epstein” was in 2000, she said, “at an event Donald and I attended together.”
“Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said. “I met my husband by chance at a New York City party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in detail in my book.”
The encounter she was referring to is a story she has told over many years about meeting Mr. Trump in 1998 at the Kit Kat Club. She has always said that it was Paolo Zampolli, an Italian modeling agent, who introduced her to Mr. Trump.
Reached by phone in Milan on Thursday, Mr. Zampolli affirmed Mrs. Trump’s account and said “I’m ready to testify in Congress” that he introduced the couple that night at the Kit Kat Club.
Mr. Zampolli did business with Mr. Epstein and appears several times in the Epstein files.
Mrs. Trump’s name appeared in the Epstein files, too — another matter she evidently wanted to clear up on Thursday. In a 2002 email written to Ghislaine Maxwell, a woman named “Melania” wrote to Ms. Maxwell to praise a profile of Mr. Epstein in New York magazine. Ms. Maxwell called the woman “sweet pea,” and the woman signed her email “Love.”
On Thursday, the first lady addressed her correspondence with Ms. Maxwell: “To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.”
The hydra-headed Epstein scandal has ensnared so many people who’ve walked the halls of the White House, and the first lady seemed intent on setting herself apart.
“I was never on Epstein’s plane,” she insisted, “and never visited his private island.”
The same cannot be said for her husband, whose name appeared on the flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s plane several times, or for the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who acknowledged in a Senate hearing earlier this year that he’d traveled to Mr. Epstein’s island.
And so there the first lady stood on Thursday, trying to distance herself from all things Epstein. She slammed those who would peddle “false smears” against her and cited people and publishers who’ve issued public apologies to her in the past. Among them: The Democratic operative James Carville; Harper Collins UK; The Daily Beast.
“Be cautious about what you believe,” Mrs. Trump warned.
She shifted the focus to the victims of Mr. Epstein’s crimes. “I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with the public hearing specifically centered around the survivors,” she said. “Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress.”
The House Oversight Committee has been investigating Mr. Epstein and the federal government’s handling of the case against him since last year. The inquiry grew from the furor over the Trump administration’s backtracking on a decision to release its full investigative material.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in an interview that he agreed with Mrs. Trump’s call for a public hearing, adding that Democrats had been pushing Republicans to hold one for months. He also said that Mrs. Trump’s comments seemed to reject Mr. Trump’s frequent contention that the Epstein investigation was a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has tried to dismiss the Epstein controversy. He told the country it’s time to “move on” and snapped at a reporter who asked him what his message would be to Mr. Epstein’s victims.
On Thursday, his wife struck a different tone: “Every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes.”
And then she turned on her stiletto heels and stalked out as the dazed reporters started shouting after her: “Why now!? Why now!?”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
See more on: Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Donald Trump, U.S. Politics
More on the Epstein Files
- Epstein Presented Himself as White House Insider: The convicted sex offender gave an Indian tycoon information on appointments and foreign policy during Trump’s first term. Some seemed prescient, though there was no evidence he was close to the administration.
- Bard College: Leon Botstein saved the school from near ruin as Bard’s president. Now, as an outside firm investigates his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the campus is home to arguments about Botstein’s legacy and future.
- Bank of America: The bank agreed to pay $72.5 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed it had financially benefited from its relationship with Epstein and overlooked signs that its accounts were being used to further his abuse of young women.
- College Buildings: Students and others are asking universities, including Harvard and Ohio State, to take down the names of buildings featuring high-profile donors with connections to Epstein. They have not done so yet.
- Far-Right Influencers: Once the Epstein files transitioned from an abstract concept to a real-world event, it became more difficult for fringe conspiracy theorists to control the story.