On Monday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the ABC host had his sights set on Melania, the newly released documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. Most interestingly, he made a promise about this self-titled movie that lit up social media.
Melania came to theaters over the weekend, and while it had plenty of buzz, very few critics liked it. The 104-minute documentary has been directed by Brett Ratner and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios. It offers a look at Melania Trump as she returned to the White House before Donald Trump‘s January 2025 inauguration. At the time of Kimmel’s monologue, the film had a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and has now slipped to 6% on the site, and a 1.3/10 on IMDb as of the time of writing.
“Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 7%,” Kimmel said, but it scored a “100% on Fox News.” He then played a clip from Outnumbered, where former Trump White House press secretary and Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany said that Melania should be honored at the Oscars. McEnany also said that the 55-year-old First Lady might be the “classiest” if she shows up at the Oscars.
🚨IT’S A SICKENING CULT:
Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany says Melania should be nominated for an Oscar.
Meanwhile, the film now holds the lowest rating in history on IMBD, making it the worst rated film of ALL TIME on the site.
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) February 2, 2026
That’s all Kimmel needed. “Mark my words right now,” he declared.
“If Melania gets nominated for an Oscar, I will host that show whether they ask me to or not. I will insist on it.”
Kimmel, after all, has hosted the Academy Awards before. However, the idea of him presiding over a ceremony honoring Melania was a bit too absurd for his political brand. Still, the joke landed because this documentary is impossible to ignore in 2026, despite its disastrous numbers.
According to Business Insider, Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million to acquire the film and another $35 million on marketing. As a result, Kimmel previously described the project as a “$75 million bribe” to Trump from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But with a 63% chance that the president will be impeached before 2029, will that help Bezos?
Despite the harsh reviews, Melania is claimed to have pulled off a $7 million opening weekend, the biggest debut for a non-concert documentary in a decade. Industry analysts attribute much of that box office strength to pro-Trump regions such as Texas and Florida.
Jimmy Kimmel slams #MelaniaFilm as a “$75 million bribe” from Amazon and refuses to believe Donald Trump liked the movie: “My guess is he saw the first eight minutes and fell asleep in his popcorn bucket.”
“According to the writer Michael Wolff, Melania is bigly upset that the… pic.twitter.com/fSmIYnFzEb
— Variety (@Variety) January 28, 2026
Meanwhile, one Rotten Tomatoes review described the film as “a singularly bad movie.” At the same time, another quipped that its only tension was “whether the tailors will be able to properly alter her inauguration turtleneck.” Others noted that after nearly two hours of the movie, they still couldn’t understand Melania Trump.
