HarperCollins UK has recalled a title repeating a claim that the US president’s wife has said is defamatory
Publishing house HarperCollins UK has apologized to Melania Trump and withdrawn a book that claimed convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to her husband, US President Donald Trump.
The company said in a statement on Wednesday that it had “decided to remove several pages” from an unauthorized biography of Prince Andrew by historian Andrew Lowine. The passages in question repeated the unverified allegations crediting Epstein for the meeting of the US presidential couple.
“Copies of the book that include those references are being permanently removed from distribution. HarperCollins UK apologizes to the First Lady,” the statement read. Melania Trump later shared the message on her X account.
The biography, first released in mid-August, explored Prince Andrew’s connection to Epstein, the American financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. NBC News previously reported that the book alleged Epstein had “facilitated” the meeting between Melania and Donald Trump in an article detailing her efforts to distance herself from the disgraced businessman.
A spokesperson for the US first lady told Axios that her legal team was “actively ensuring immediate retractions and apologies by those who spread malicious, defamatory falsehoods,” emphasizing that her own memoir states she met Donald Trump at a New York party in 1998 through a different acquaintance.
READ MORE: White House dismisses Trump ‘birthday letter’ to Epstein as ‘bulls**t’
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to release “Epstein files” supposedly detailing ties between the financier and powerful figures. After taking office, however, Trump dismissed the documents’ existence as a “Democratic hoax,” a reversal critics have said deflects from his past association with Epstein.
Melania Trump has previously secured retractions from the Daily Beast and a podcast hosted by Democratic strategist James Carville over similar claims.
