Photo Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
Melania producer Marc Beckman says his team received Mick Jagger’s blessing to use the Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter” in the film. But other sources close to Jagger say the claim is spurious at best.
“We worked very close with them on that,” Beckman said. “And that wasn’t a political thing. With the Stones, they were just like, ‘oh you’re making a nice movie.’ They were like able to get over the hurdle. It’s not politics—it’s just some story about some woman that is going from being a civilian back into the White House. This movie looks cool and Brett [Ratner] is doing a cool job and Melania Trump is focused and let’s do it. We showed it to them and they were impressed.”
Despite that, a source spoke with The Guardian off the record to say that the deal was made exclusively between rights holders ABKCO and the movie’s producers—with the Rolling Stones having no part of approving the usage.
The Rolling Stones are part of a group of artists who have previously objected to their music being used by Donald Trump. They join the likes of Guns N’ Roses, the Prince Estate, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Adele, Queen, REM, Elton John, ABBA, Jack White, Céline Dion, the Isaac Hayes Estate, the Tom Petty Estate, and the Foo Fighters in their objections.
According to Variety, the rights holders to the Prince song requested were reportedly in favor of the song’s use, but the lawyer managing his estate sent a letter to veto the request stating, “Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.” Beckman himself confirmed this by stating: “[Trump] comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It’s not political. And that [lawyer] blocked it. It’s so ridiculous.”
Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to the Melania movie and spent $35 million on marketing the film. It opened earlier this month and has generated $16.4M so far at the box office, with most of the hall coming from the United States.
