The claim has appeared in numerous forms, spread by the U.K.-based tabloid Daily Mail, by former President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and by the Brazilian model Amanda Ungaro, the ex-partner of Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who represented Melania Trump in the 1990s and a close Trump ally often connected to the claim. We previously reported on the claim in September 2025.
Snopes readers have searched the site over the years looking for more information about these allegations, which we determined are not supported by credible evidence and unfounded. We reached out to the White House for more information but have not heard back.
The earliest version of the claim that Melania Trump worked as an escort came from the Daily Mail in August 2016.
According to the BBC and NPR, Melania Trump sued the Daily Mail and a blogger in the U.S. who also shared the claim for defamation, seeking $150 million in damages. Her lawyer, Charles Harder, told the BBC that the allegation was "outright lying."
The lawsuits could be viewed as SLAPP suits, a term that "refers to lawsuits brought by individuals and entities to dissuade 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, retracted the articles and paid damages to Melania Trump, according to Politico and previous reporting from Snopes.
In August 2025, Hunter Biden, the 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.
In response, Melania Trump threatened to sue Hunter Biden for $1 billion, according to the BBC. In a follow-up video published on Channel 5, Biden refused to apologize for his comments, claiming that the information was reported by journalist Michael Wolff, who has written 4 books on Trump's time in office, and by The New York Times. (The Times' story says Epstein claimed he introduced the two.)
Melania Trump also denied any connections to Epstein in April 2026, calling the rumors "mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation." It was unclear why she made the announcement at that time.
The rumor resurfaced again in May and June 2026, this time from Amanda Ungaro, the Brazilian model and ex-partner of Zampolli, a former modeling agent who represented Melania Trump in the 1990s. Ungaro is also the mother of Zampolli's child.
She repeated the claim that Melania Trump worked as an escort and that Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump without providing evidence. The original video of the accusation, posted to X, has since been deleted.
In sum, there's no evidence that the information, which originally came from a source known for spreading unfounded rumors all the way back in 2016, has a basis in reality.
A related claim suggesting the Trumps met at a party hosted by Maxwell also lacks supporting evidence. According to reporting from Today and The Times of London, the Trumps met at a party hosted by Zampolli. A 2016 profile of Melania Trump in Harper's Bazaar and a profile of Zampolli published by the digital magazine Air Mail also claimed that he introduced the couple.
(Ungaro, meanwhile, claimed Zampolli told her it was Epstein, not himself, who introduced the couple. She also claimed that Melania Trump was an escort for Epstein).
It's worth noting that Ungaro was deported from the U.S. in 2025. She claims,and The New York Times reported, that Zampolli spoke with officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement about Ungaro's situation and may have influenced immigration enforcement actions against her.
Zampolli has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He's also suggested Ungaro needs therapy and alleged her posts were manipulated using artificial intelligence tools.
Many versions of the claim we found suggested that Zampolli, not Epstein, was Melania Trump's "escort agent," given their established connection and the fact that it is not unheard of for sex workers to moonlight as models. However, that claim is also hearsay and has no evidence supporting it.
Finally, the photo sometimes attached to social media posts spreading the claim, supposedly of Melania Trump with Zampolli, does not match other images of Zampolli published online. It might instead be Trump with "her photographer roommate, Matthew Arabian," but if that's the case, the copypasta got his name wrong. The Times of London article and a 2020 Vanity Fair review of a biography of Trump, "The Art of Her Deal," noted that the roommate's name was Matthew Atanian, not Arabian.