Rotten Tomatoes’ parent company, Versant, says there has been no interference with the unusually high audience score for Melania, the Amazon MGM-backed documentary that has sparked online debate. As of Friday morning heading into its second weekend in theaters, the film holds a 99% audience score alongside a starkly low 7% critics score—an eye-catching gap that has fueled speculation about politically motivated review manipulation.
Versant rejected those claims outright, stating that the scores are legitimate and based on verified purchases. “There has been no bot manipulation on the audience reviews for the ‘Melania’ documentary,” the company said in a statement to Variety. “Reviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film.”
The discrepancy became a punchline on late-night television earlier this month, when Jimmy Kimmel highlighted the contrast during his Feb. 4 monologue. He noted that the film’s critics score sat below famously panned titles, while its audience approval exceeded some of cinema’s most revered classics. Kimmel joked that the situation seemed suspicious, sarcastically suggesting that authorities investigate ticket sales nationwide to get to the bottom of it.
According to Rolling Stone, Melania Trump’s new documentary is now the film with the biggest disparity between critic and audience reviews in Rotten Tomatoes history.
Directed by Brett Ratner, Melania chronicles Melania Trump over the 20 days leading up to her husband Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. The film debuted with $7 million at the domestic box office—an impressive figure for a documentary, though still modest relative to Amazon’s reported $40 million acquisition and an additional $35 million marketing spend.
Audience data from opening weekend shows the film skewed heavily toward older viewers. As Variety reported, 72% of the audience was female and 83% was over the age of 45. Nearly three-quarters of ticket buyers were white, according to PostTrak figures.
