Melania Trump's Business Ventures That Didn't Go As Planned

While Donald Trump's relationship with his kids includes his business empire in a big way, he's less interested in working alongside his significant other. As he once told ABC News, "Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. If you're in business for yourself, I really think it's a bad idea to put your wife working for you." Donald's third wife, Melania Trump, may not be as involved in the Trump Organization as his first wife was, but she sure has kept busy in other avenues.

Born in 1970 as Melanija Knavs in Slovenia, she began modeling in Europe as a teenager. In 1996 she moved to New York, where a steady mix of commercial and editorial work kept her in the industry and broadened her client list. Her magazine presence grew over the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was in New York, in 1998, that she met Donald Trump, already a high-profile figure in real estate and media.

The pair's relationship eventually led to their marriage in 2005, and Melania became a prominent figure in Donald's orbit. While her husband built skyscrapers and a global brand, Melania pursued her own ventures. Unlike Ivana Trump's executive posts in former husband's casinos or Ivanka Trump's operational role at the Trump Organization, Melania's brand was built on curation. However, some of her ventures sparked controversy, weren't as lucrative or enduring as one might expect, or were connected to messy legal drama. Here's what we know about her various endeavors that arguably didn't go as planned.

Melania Trump entered the "affordable luxury" arena in 2010 with a QVC jewelry line that promised everyday glamour for the working woman. It was her first major solo business venture, arriving at the height of the celebrity-designed jewelry boom and just before her husband's political rise would recast her public identity.

At the time, Donald Trump's third wife positioned herself as a hands-on creator rather than merely a celebrity endorser. "I studied architecture and design, and it's always in me to design, to sketch, to bring ideas to life, and that's what I did with my jewelry line," she told Jetset Magazine in 2012. Melania also approached the business with a surprisingly feminist marketing angle for someone who would later be associated with conservative values. "They don't need to ask anybody if they could buy it for themselves. They could go and buy something under $200 and have fun with the jewelry," she added in the same interview.

Melania's collection initially performed well enough to maintain its QVC relationship for several years, but it wouldn't last. By 2017 — as Melania moved into the White House and scrutiny of her family's business interests intensified — the White House followed with a clear boundary: "Melania Marks Accessories LLC is not currently doing any business, and the First Lady's former jewelry line is no longer active. To be clear, the First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so. It is not a possibility" (via the Daily Mail).

In 2013, Melania Trump rolled out Melania Caviar Complexe C6, a caviar‑infused skincare line priced between $50 and $150. The promise was luxe science for everyday routines: a daily moisturizer, a night cream, and an exfoliator. Partnering with New Sunshine LLC, Melania aimed to position the line as a mid-luxury brand. The skincare line quickly gained traction, and as Mother Jones reported, its visibility soared after Melania promoted the brand on "The Celebrity Apprentice."

Despite the initial buzz, the venture soon hit a major roadblock. The year of the launch, Donald Trump's wife found herself in an Indianapolis courtroom lamenting the fallout from unfulfilled demand. As reported by the Washington Post, she stated, "I promoted all around the world. The product was on national TV all around the world, all the magazines and the product was nowhere to be found."

Melania Trump sued New Sunshine for breach of contract, telling the court, "They didn't pay me," according to USA Today. The Indianapolis Business Journal noted that New Sunshine had delivered only $250,000 of the $1 million in upfront payments it had promised her. Behind the scenes, New Sunshine LLC was imploding. The company's owner, John Menard Jr., and co‑owner Steve Hilbert were locked in a legal brawl over Hilbert's management of Menard's investment company, with court filings alleging roughly $345 million in losses. While they fought, shelves stayed empty. Melania ultimately won her case and received an undisclosed settlement. By then, though, the brand was beyond saving. More than a decade later, in her 2024 memoir, she revisited the debacle with cool distance; the issues, she maintained, had nothing to do with her (via Daily Mirror).

Melania Trump didn't stop at costume jewelry. Under Melania Marks Accessories LLC, she also sold fashion watches branded as Melania Timepieces. The timepieces complemented her jewelry collection, offering coordinated looks that QVC shoppers could purchase. Melania also emphasized her personal involvement in the design process. "It's great fun. It's very creative for me. I'm involved from A to Z for every piece that I design, so I'm very involved in everything that I do," Donald Trump's other half told Jetset Magazine.

However, by 2017, the Melania Timepieces collection was no longer available on QVC, and the partnership between Melania Marks Accessories LLC and its manufacturer, MZ Berger & Co., had officially come to an end. As an executive told McClatchy DC, "There is no longer a relationship."

The watches, like the jewelry line, also became a point of controversy during Melania's time in the White House. In 2017, references to her QVC ventures were removed from her official biography on the White House website after concerns of potential conflicts of interest. A spokesperson later explained to CNN that the change was made to prevent any impression that she was leveraging her public role for personal profit.

Melania Trump has long presented herself as a global brand, yet turning that image into sustained business hasn't always gone smoothly. In 2017, this became apparent during her libel suit against the Daily Mail. The paper had published unverified claims linking her early modeling work to an escort service. Melania sued for $150 million, arguing the story harmed her reputation. What made the case stand out was the way her lawyers framed the damage. 

According to her attorneys, the Daily Mail's claims could have had a negative impact on a lifestyle brand that apparently was in the works at the time. "[Melania] had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, 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 statement read, per the AP. 

This framing created immediate ethical controversy, with government ethics expert Richard Painter telling the AP, "This is a very serious situation where she says she intends to make a lot of money. That ought to be repudiated by the White House or investigated by Congress." In response, Melania's lawyer, Charles Harder, denied any suggestion that she intended to exploit her position as the wife of President Donald Trump. "The first lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so. It is not a possibility. Any statements to the contrary are being misinterpreted," Harder told the AP.

Melania Trump's post-retail pivot to NFTs was a sharp turn from physical goods to crypto-era collectibles. It quickly picked up the same headwinds that dogged her earlier ventures. As Business Insider reported at the time, Melania reentered the market in December 2021 with Melania's Vision, a watercolor image of her eyes priced at 1 SOL (about $150). The token pledged a portion of proceeds to her Be Best initiative for youths aging out of foster care.

The venture's most controversial moment came just weeks after launch, when Donald Trump's wife announced the Head of State Collection in January 2022. It bundled an NFT with a physical painting and the white hat she wore during Macron's 2018 state visit, and reportedly fetched about $170,000 at auction. Soon after, Bloomberg flagged blockchain clues that led many to think Melania — or someone on her team — bid up her own auction, i.e., possible wash trading to inflate the price. Her office pushed back, telling Bloomberg, "The nature of Blockchain protocol is entirely transparent."

In 2023, fresh backlash hit with Melania's Man on the Moon NFT, which used Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 image. The project drew criticism for potentially violating NASA's policy, which explicitly prohibits the commercialization of its imagery through NFTs or merchandise. Even if the file itself is technically free to use, the program's policies and the optics of monetizing iconic government imagery put the drop on the wrong side of public sentiment.

In recent years, the first lady has gone all in on Christmas. Through USA Memorabilia, Melania Trump sells U.S.-made ornaments. The pieces are etched with her signature and bundled with a matching digital collectible.

In 2023, she doubled down with the "Red, White, and Blue Christmas" collection, which she promoted on X. By December 2024, the third drop, "Merry Christmas, AMERICA!," leaned directly into election-season patriotism. "They're very patriotic this year. As you can see, it's all red, white, and blue. I was inspired by the election," she said on "Fox & Friends." The most expensive piece, the USA Star, was priced at $90 and included her signature along with the option for a digital collectible. In 2025, Melania returned with her "250 Collection" to honor the 250th anniversary of the United States. The line featured six limited-edition ornaments, priced between $75 and $90, and was marketed as a tribute to American heritage.

For someone who once expressed her disdain for Christmas decorating duties on tape, Melania's holly jolly pivot raised eyebrows. In a recording from 2018 that was later obtained by CNN, President Donald Trump's wife can be heard venting about White House holiday duties with the line: "I'm working my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that, you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations?"

Melania Trump sure knows how to make a profitable reappearance when the occasion suits her. In 2024, she decided to cash in on Mother's Day with a $245 gold vermeil necklace called "Her Love & Gratitude" with her signature engraved on the back. Marketed as a tribute for moms, the necklace came with an eye-watering price tag that raised more questions than enthusiasm. While a number of Trump supporters celebrated the release, critics were quick to call out the questionable value of the piece.

The backlash on social media was swift after Melania announced the necklace on X in April 2024, stating, "Let's honor and celebrate all mothers with love and gratitude." One user mocked the necklace's price, saying, "This is worth about $6," while another commented, "We never hear from Melania, not that I'm complaining, until it's time for her to sell something for profit." 

A third criticized the material, asking, "$250 for vermeil? Are you kidding me?" Melania's core audience, however, saw it differently, praising the necklace as refined and appropriately sentimental. As one admirer said, "Very beautiful piece of jewelry."

Melania Trump's leap into cryptocurrency in 2025 was loud but brief. Launched in January 2025 to coincide with Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration, the $MELANIA token debuted under her company, MKT World LLC, with a market cap of $1.7 billion. However, its value quickly dropped. By late February, the coin had fallen 93%, according to CoinMarketCap. By April, The Guardian reported that it was trading for pennies.

Asymmetric CEO Joe McCann told the Irish Star that meme coins are built for volatility — but he noted a unique accelerant in this case: "Unlike other memecoins, you have the literal president of the United States who is exceptionally good at creating viral controversy on the internet, whether you like it or not, that could have an impact on the price of his token either directly or indirectly."

In April 2025, a lawsuit alleged that executives behind $MELANIA orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme. According to The Guardian, the coin's creators allegedly manipulated its value by purchasing large quantities of the cryptocurrency through the Meteora exchange platform, driving up its price before offloading their holdings at the peak. Melania wasn't named as a defendant, but the complaint claimed she was used as window dressing to lend legitimacy to the scheme. Around the same time, Irish Star reported she had sold roughly $30 million worth of tokens, a headline that, fair or not, fed a perception of insiders escaping as retail holders absorbed the losses.

Melania Trump tried a different kind of comeback during the 2024 election cycle with a self-titled memoir pitched as her definitive account of life in the spotlight. The standard hardcover is listed at $40, while a $150 signed edition and a $250 collector's package with bonus photographs targeted superfans and gift buyers. Per the industry data cited by Vanity Fair, week-one hardcover sales hit above 85,000 and it reached the top of The New York Times best-seller list. But momentum faded fast. Accio tracked roughly an 80% drop within three weeks, reportedly landing the first-month under 150,000 copies — a respectable number for a political-adjacent memoir, but far from blockbuster territory. For comparison, Penguin Random House reported Michelle Obama's "Becoming" moved 725,000 copies on its first day.

The book received mixed reception. Alexandra Jacobs of The New York Times offered a lukewarm review of Melania's book, noting that the memoir contained little in the way of revelations. "Though clad in a black cover — a choice that could symbolize mourning, sophistication or more likely abject nothingness — is a brazen whitewash of a presidency and a marriage of some tumult," Jacobs wrote.

Still, Melania did include one passage that surprised both allies and critics. "Restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body," she wrote in perhaps the memoir's most quoted passage (The Guardian). Melania's stance suggests a divide between her and Donald Trump: As president, her husband appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court, and in 2022, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Melania Trump made headlines once again when she secured a $40 million deal with Amazon. A documentary, titled "Melania," is set to hit theaters on January 30, 2026, before streaming on Prime Video. According to The New York Times, production began in December 2024, right after the election season. New York Magazine reported that Paramount offered $4 million and Disney $14 million, but Amazon secured the project with its significantly higher bid. According to the New York Post, Melania, listed as an executive producer for the documentary, is expected to pocket more than 70% of the $40 million deal. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, a spokesperson defended the deal: "We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it."

The choice of director also generated a serious amount of heat. Amazon tapped Brett Ratner for what would be his first major Hollywood project since 2017, when a Los Angeles Times investigation detailed multiple sexual misconduct allegations that derailed his studio career. (He has denied the allegations.) According to Puck, it seems Ratner was "the first and only choice" for the job.

While one might argue all press is good press, the movie is news before anyone has even seen a frame, and, as with most things Trump-related, it's already polarizing. What's more, there are some questions about how it will impact Melania's image. As brand expert Chad Teixeira told the Irish Star, "It might shift perceptions from being a passive spouse to someone intimately involved in political transition and strategic planning, but if critics interpret the footage as selective spin, it could backfire, reinforcing perceptions of staging or PR manipulation."