HarperCollins UK apologizes to Melania Trump, removes book passages

HarperCollins UK issued an apology to First Lady Melania Trump after it published “unverified claims” about her in a book. 

“HarperCollins UK recently published a book by Andrew Lownie titled ‘Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.’ We have, in consultation with the author, removed passages of the book that referenced unverified claims about the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump,” HarperCollins UK wrote in a statement Tuesday. 

“Copies of the book that include those references are being permanently removed from distribution. HarperCollins UK apologizes to the First Lady,” the statement added. 

Melania Trump shared the statement, which was first posted on HarperCollins UK’s X account, to her nearly 4 million X followers.  

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The book, which focuses on Prince Andrew, examines the disgraced royal’s ties to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Lownie alleged that Epstein introduced Donald Trump to Melania. Representatives for the first lady rejected the claim, pointing to her own book which states she met her husband at New York City’s Kit Kat Club in 1998 and was not introduced to him by Epstein. 

Melania Trump’s team has taken swift action towards those who’ve promoted the false claim. Back in July, The Daily Beast retracted an article it had published based on comments made by Michael Wolff, who echoed the fabricated Epstein connection. The outlet later issued an apology. 

DAILY BEAST APOLOGIZES TO MELANIA TRUMP OVER RETRACTED EPSTEIN ALLEGATIONS ARTICLE

“The Daily Beast recently published a story headlined ‘Melania Trump ‘Very Involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author’ based on an interview with Michael Wolff. Upon reflection, we have determined that the article did not meet our standards and has therefore been removed from our platforms,” The Daily Beast said in a statement last month.

“In response to a letter from the first lady’s attorneys, The Daily Beast has also removed a portion of an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast titled ‘Trump’s Epstein Scandal Can’t Stop Won’t Stop’ referencing the first lady,” the statement continued. “The first lady points to her bestselling book ‘Melania’ as the definitive account of her life story. We apologize to the first lady and our readers.”   

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville repeated the claim on his own podcast and similarly issued a retraction and an apology. 

“In last week’s podcast episode, we spoke with Judd Legum,” Carville said. “After the episode, we received a letter from Melania Trump’s lawyer. He took issue with our title of one of those YouTube videos from that episode and a couple of comments I made about the First Lady. We took a look at what they complained about, and we took down the video and edited out those comments from the episode. I also take back these statements and apologize.”

Attorneys for Melania Trump also sent a $1 billion legal threat against Hunter Biden after he made the claim as a guest on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. Biden dismissed the threat and refused to apologize. 

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