Wolff: This Is What I Know About Melania Bombshell

First Lady Melania Trump’s sudden on-camera statement denying any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was about controlling the image of her personal life, says the author Michael Wolff.

Melania shocked many when she took the extraordinary step of summoning reporters to hear her read a prepared statement in which she declared she was never a friend of Epstein or his top associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“I was never involved in any capacity—I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane, and never visited his private island," she said from the White House on Thursday.

Her statement raised questions about the timing of her speaking out—something her top aide vaguely answered, claiming she simply reached a breaking point and that “enough was enough.”

However, that vague explanation has not quelled speculation about “why now?”

Wolff sued the first lady in October after she threatened to file a $1 billion defamation lawsuit against him. He told the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast that Melania’s statement is the Slovenia-born first lady’s latest attempt—despite holding one of the most public positions in the world—to keep how she came to America private.

“This is the first time a first lady would have sued a journalist or media organizations who are saying things about her,” he said, adding, “I don’t think there’s any instance of a president or the first lady suing the media.”

Wolff continued, “From the beginning, she has fiercely tried to protect and control her version of her life after she came to New York in the 1990s.”

Wolff told the podcast’s co-host, Joanna Coles, that many details about how Melania first arrived in New York remain unknown, including, “How did she come here? Who brought her here? Under what legal auspices? How did she work here?”

He continued, “Many, many, many details which are, you know, might be, that might have answers that she does not want the public to know and that might be kind of complicated for her.”

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung has previously given the Daily Beast a recycled statement on Wolff, saying, “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--- and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”

Wolff noted that Melania has previously resorted to the courts to “shut down questions about her life.”