Marc Beckman, the producer of Melania, has revealed that artists including Guns N’ Roses, Grace Jones and Prince‘s estate refused to allow their music to be used in the film about the First Lady.
The film follows Melania during the 20-day period before her husband, Donald Trump, was sworn into office for the second time last January.
Already there has been controversy about the music used in the documentary, with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and director Paul Thomas Anderson asking for their Phantom Thread music to be removed – a request which has been shut down by the producer.
Now, the producer has also shared that other artists have taken issue with the idea of their music being used in the project, and revealed that Guns N’ Roses, Grace Jones and Prince’s estate all refused to grant permission to the filmmakers.
When asked by Variety if they had any songs that were difficult to license for Melania, Beckman replied: “I’ll tell you on the record, if you want to know. There was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there were politics to it.”
“For example, the guys from Guns N’ Roses split down the middle politically,” he added. “There was a beautiful song we wanted to use, and one of the guys — I don’t want to name, it’s not fair —said, ‘You got it. Go.’ And the other one was basically like, ‘There’s just no way.’
“We needed everybody’s approval to get it in the film. So Guns N’ Roses was definitely a disappointment for us; we all have a lot of respect for Guns N’ Roses.”
Beckman went on to give more specific examples, sharing that “there was a song that we wanted to use from Grace Jones; obviously, also a tremendous amount of respect for her.
“She apparently couldn’t get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too. It’s disappointing when people put politics so far ahead, and that happened a little bit with the film, for sure.”
The producer then added that they were initially thinking they could incorporate a Prince song, until a “lawyer that manages the estate” got in touch and told them that “Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump”.
“We were like, ‘But it’s not a Donald Trump film! He comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It’s not political.’ And that guy blocked it. It’s so ridiculous.”
The reference to Guns N’ Roses ultimately deciding not to grant permission to use their music in Melania follows frontman Axl Rose hitting out at Donald Trump multiple times over the past 10 years.
Back in 2016, he took to social media to ask the now-President if he if the President-elect “ever stops whining?”, and two years later he accused the Trump campaign of using “loopholes” to play music at rallies and other events without the performers’ consent.
In 2020, he also marked his return to social media after several months by making a Tweet seemingly mocking Donald Trump and his ‘Make America Great Again’ hats.
— Axl Rose (@axlrose) February 10, 2020
As for Prince, the comments from a lawyer representing the late singer’s estate align with those made back in 2018, when they reportedly issued a cease and desist order to Trump and The White House for using the song ‘Purple Rain’ at rallies. They would then double down on the stance the following year.
Finally, for Grace Jones, the refusal to authorise her music in the documentary follows on from the singer hitting out at Trump in 2017, telling him to “grow up”.
“That’s all I can say to him. He makes a big deal of sportspeople taking a knee but he doesn’t make a big deal of the KKK marching with fire. He calls them ‘fine people’,” she told The Guardian.
“He hasn’t shown us his taxes; how can he make a plan for tax if he’s hiding his taxes from us? I believe that every presidential candidate should see a psychiatrist before they’re allowed to stand. I truly believe he has brought a whole dark cloud over the world. Climate, immigration, everything… We are in a dark period.”
Variety reports that they reached out to reps for Guns N’ Roses and Prince’s estate regarding the comments made by Beckman, but did not hear back.
Songs that are featured on the soundtrack include the aforementioned music from Phantom Thread, as well as songs performed by Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Boney M, and James Brown, according to IMDb.
In the interview with Variety, Beckman also adds that “Mick Jagger was actually involved” and “gave us his blessing”. The outlet added that when they reached out to reps for The Rolling Stones, they said that “they couldn’t speak directly to Beckman’s account of the group’s approval, but reiterated that ABKCO owns the song” that featured.
Amazon, Disney, Netflix and Paramount Pictures all bid for the streaming rights of Melania, and while Disney offered about $14million (£10.2million), it lost out to Amazon’s $40million (£29.3million) bid – the highest amount ever paid for a documentary.
The Brett Ratner-directed film opened at Number 29 at the UK box office – making just under £33,000 in its first week.
However, around that same time, figures emerged that it had earned $9.5million (£7million) globally at the box office from a budget of $40million, plus a reported $35million (£25.6million) extra in marketing. It is a particularly high figure for a documentary, and some have contested the legitimacy of the stats, with The Daily Beast reporting accusations of “fake tickets sales” made to boost the movie’s fortunes.
In the US, 49 per cent of the opening day audience identified as Republicans, only two per cent identified as Democrats, and the audience was 72 per cent female. It currently stands at an 11 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.