Melania Trump filed her third defamation suit against the Mail Online over an August 2016 article that accused her of having once been a prostitute, arguing for the first time that it ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to cash in on the presidency.
”Mail Online’s conduct was extreme and outrageous in falsely making the scurrilous charge that the future First Lady of the United States worked as a prostitute,” reads the Manhattan Supreme Court suit, filed Monday by her lawyer Charles Harder, who won Hulk Hogan a $140 million verdict against Gawker in a Florida case financed by billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel.
”Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person…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 Manhattan suit says.
“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance,” according to the $150 million filing.
“The [statements] also constitute defamation per se because they impugned on her fitness to perform her duties as First Lady of the United States,” the suit alleges.
The suit comes just three days after a Maryland judge tossed a similar claim against the Mail Online for jurisdictional reason. The suit is still pending against a local blogger who wrote a similar story.
Mrs. Trump also sued the Daily Mail newspaper, in U.K., over a version of the article which ran in print. The Mail Online’s website is headquartered in New York.
The Aug. 19, 2016 article, “Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won’t go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife” was read by millions of people, the Manhattan suit says.
The article was retracted.
It claimed that the future First Lady masqueraded as a model in New York in the 1990s, when she really worked for an escort agency that catered to wealthy men.
The story said the women carried two “composite cards”– one with measurements and agency details and another that “stated whether they prefer the older men and described their abilities in the bedroom.”
The claims are “completely false” and Mrs. Trump never worked in the “sex business,” the suit says.
“As a result of defendant’s publication of defamatory statements about plaintiff, plaintiff’s brand has lost significant value, and major business opportunities that were otherwise available to her have been lost and/or significantly impacted,” the suit says.
She is represented by Charles Harder, the same attorney who won Hulk Hogan a $140 million verdict against Gawker in a Florida case financed by billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.