Media outlet apologizes, pays Melania Trump $2.9 million to settle lawsuit

After a lawsuit accusing the Daily Mail of making false and defamatory statements about First Lady Melania Trump‘s work as a model, the media outlet has apologized to Melania Trump and will also be paying $2.9 million in damages and costs.

“We accept that these allegations about Mrs. Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them. We apologize to Mrs. Trump for any distress that our publication caused her,” the Daily Mail and Mail Online said in a statement.

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Mrs. Trump had filed suit in September after the outlet published statements about her modeling work that she claimed negatively impacted her image and her business. She had originally asked for at least $150 million in damages and filed suit against the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom as well.

Her husband, President Donald Trump, has repeatedly called for libel laws to be “opened” in the United States in order to make publications more easily subject to lawsuits. During the campaign, a then-candidate Trump claimed that he would “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money” if he were to be elected president.

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