The Daily Mail retracted elements of a story it ran in August alleging Melania Trump, wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, moonlighted as an escort while modeling in Italy in the early 1990s.
The retraction comes two weeks after Trump lawyers threatened to bring a defamation suit against the British tabloid.
Though the Mail operates out of the U.K., it has a massive international presence. The story was carried by other outlets after original publication in the Mail.
The story features a nude image of Trump. It suggests she may have worked as a fille de joie while employed at a modeling agency in Milan, citing a recently published unauthorized biography called “From The Whore House To The White House: The True Story Of Melania Trump.” (RELATED: Melania Sues Newspaper After It Claims She Was A Call Girl)
“All such statements are 100% false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful,” Trump attorney Charles Harder said in an email to Politico’s Hadas Gold.
The Mail released a statement late Thursday retracting the reportage that she worked as an escort. The paper did not retract allegations that she did not abide by federal immigration protocols when entering and working in the United States. The statement reads in part:
To the extent that anything in the Daily Mail’s article was interpreted as stating or suggesting that Mrs. Trump worked as an ‘escort’ or in the ‘sex business,’ that she had a ‘composite or presentation card for the sex business,’ or that either of the modeling agencies referenced in the article were engaged in these businesses, it is hereby retracted, and the Daily Mail newspaper regrets any such misinterpretation.
Trump could still bring a defamation claim against the paper. She has not announced if she intends to proceed with litigation.
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