In December 2025, social media posts on sites including X and Facebook shared images claiming that US First Lady Melania Trump worked as an escort before meeting her now-husband, President Donald Trump.
According to the posts, Melania Trump began escorting under a man named Paolo Zampolli, who was good friends with financier Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein was arrested on child sex trafficking charges in 2019 and later found dead by suicide in his jail cell. Maxwell was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122243189684255019&set=pcb.122243189810255019
Snopes readers have scoured the site for more information on these allegations, which we have determined are not supported by credible evidence. We reached out to the White House for more information, but have not heard back.
The claim that Melania Trump worked as an escort before meeting Donald Trump has been circulating online since at least August 2016, when the UK’s Daily Mail tabloid published an article making the allegation. In August 2025, Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, claimed that Epstein introduced the two in an interview on Channel 5, a YouTube channel run by journalist Andrew Callaghan.
However, according to the BBC and NPR, Melania Trump has sued the Daily Mail and a US blogger who also shared the claim for defamation, seeking $150 million in damages. her lawyer, Charles Harder, told the BBC that the claim was “an outright lie”. She also threatened to sue Hunter Biden for $1 billion, according to the BBC.
The lawsuits could be viewed as SLAPP lawsuits, a term that “refers to lawsuits brought by individuals and entities to deter their critics from continuing to produce negative publicity.” according to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute.
However, both the blogger and the Daily Mail settled the lawsuits, withdrew the articles and paid damages to Trump, accordingly Political and previous reporting from Snopes. Meanwhile, in a later video published on Channel 5, Biden refused to apologize for his comments, claiming the information was also reported by journalist Michael Wolff, who has written 4 books about Trump’s time in office and by The New York Times. (The Times story says Epstein claimed to have introduced the two.)
In conclusion, there is no evidence that the claim, which came from a tabloid with a history of spreading baseless rumours, has any basis in reality.
The rumor may seem credible because it sprinkles in small bits of true information. According to reports from Today and The Times of LondonTrump actually met at a party hosted by Zampolli, a former modeling agent who represented Melania Trump in the 1990s. 2016 profile of Melania Trump in Harper’s Bazaar and a profile of Zampolli published by Air Mail digital magazine he also claimed to have introduced the couple.
The claim that Zampolli was Melania Trump’s “escort agent” might feel somewhat intuitive given their established connection — it’s not unheard of for sex workers to moonlight as models. However, this claim is baseless and has no evidence to support it.
Images shared with the claim sometimes contained an incomplete link to a Politico article. This article can be a 2019 story detailing Maxwell’s network of connections who mentioned Zampolli. According to the article, he was involved in the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, an initiative created by a charity run by Maxwell called TerraMar. It is unclear how often the two interacted.
Finally, the photo of Melania Trump with her roommate, Matthew Atanian, often attached to the post spreading the rumor was legit. It appeared in a Times of London article published in 2016. Some posts claimed the photo showed Trump with Zampolli and One copypasta (text repeatedly copied and shared verbatim online), Atanian’s name was misspelled as “Matthew Arabian”.
Sources:
Bryant, Kenzie. “Say what you will about Melania Trump, but she seems like a great roommate.” Vanity Fair, 18 June 2020, https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/melania-trump-biography-revelations.
Daily. “Melania Trump – An Apology”. Mail Online, 12 April 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/~/article-4404142/index.html.
“Donald and Melania Trump: A Timeline of Their Relationship.” TODAY.Com, 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.today.com/popculture/donald-trump-melania-trump-relationship-timeline-rcna172256.
Gerstein, Josh. “Maryland judge dismisses Melania Trump’s libel suit against Daily Mail”. Politico, 2 Feb. 2017, https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/02/melania-trumps-libel-suit-daily-mail-234578.
“Melania Trump Sues Daily Mail, US Blogger For $150 Million Over Sex Worker Claims”. BBC News, 1 Sep. 2016. US and Canada. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37253025.
“Melania Trump wins damages from Daily Mail over ‘escort’ allegation”. BBC News, 12 Apr. 2017. US & Canada. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39575680.
“The SLAPP Suit”. LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/slapp_suit. Accessed 25 August 2025.
Personally, Snopes. “Daily Mail Reportedly Pays Melania Trump $2.9M Settlement in Defamation Lawsuit”. Snopes, Apr 12 2017, https://www.snopes.com//news/2017/04/12/daily-mail-melania-trump-libel/.
Sutton, Kelsey. “Daily Mail Settles Melania Trump Defamation Case for $2.9 Million.” Politico, Apr. 12 2017, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/melania-trump-daily-mail-settlement-237151.
———. “Maryland Blogger Settles Melania Trump’s Defamation Lawsuit”. Politico, 7 Feb. 2017, https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/02/melania-trump-settles-libel-suit-against-maryland-blogger-234730.
The former modeling agent has become Trump’s foreign policy muse. https://airmail.news/issues/2025-2-15/trumps-mini-me. Accessed 25 August 2025.
Wamsley, Laurel. “Melania Trump lawsuit claims ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to win millions is lost.” NPR, Feb. 7 2017. Politics. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/513970871/melania-trump-lawsuit-argues-once-in-a-lifetime-chance-to-make-millions-is-lost.
York, Iain Dey, New. Melania’s supermodel resume is starting to look a little tattered. 23 July 2016, https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/melanias-supermodel-cv-begins-to-look-a-little-ragged-tt9s3smd2.