Who is Michael Wolff? Author sues Melania Trump amid threats of $1 billion lawsuit over Jefferey Epstein claims
Michael Wolff is an author, journalist and media critic, famous for his sharp political commentary and insider reporting. He was earlier sued by Melania Trump over his comments on her links with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
Author Michael Wolff has sued US First Lady Melania Trump claiming that she had threated to file a $1 billion lawsuit for damages if he didn’t retract his statements on her ties with Jeffrey Epstein.
“Mrs. Trump's claims are made for the sole purpose of harassing, intimidating, punishing or otherwise maliciously inhibiting Mr. Wolff's free exercise of speech,” the suit filed in the in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan said.
The filing comes a week after Melania Trump's attorney Alejandro Brito sent a letter to Wolff demanding he take back the public statements he made about his client about her links to the sex offender and that he make “a monetary proposal to Mrs. Trump to ameliorate the harm that you have caused”.
In his lawsuit, Wolff said Melania Trump and her husband, President Donald Trump, “have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them” with costly legal actions “to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies.”
He said the threats “are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights.”
Who is Michael Wolff?
Michael Wolff is an author, journalist and media critic, famous for his sharp political commentary and insider reporting.
Born in 1953, the media personality hails from Paterson, New Jersey and graduated from the Columbia University.
Wolff began his career at The New York Times as a copy boy and worked his way up from there to become one of the most recognised media personalities globally. He is a columnist for USA Today and Hollywood Reporter, and later co-founded the news aggregation site Newser and served as editor of Adweek.
His work has won him two National Magazine awards and one Mirror Award.
Michael Wolff was previously married to his attorney Alison Anthoine, with whom he has three children. He later got married to journalist Victoria Floethe. The couple have two children.
As an author, Michael Wolff earned popularity when he published his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House in 2018, which contained sensational statements about Donald Trump, his behaviour and the chaos in the White House among senior staff members.
Wolff claims that he recorded around 100 hours of interviews with Jeffrey Epstein over several years.
Michael Wolff Books
The books published by Michael Wolff include Burn Rate (1998) and The Man Who Owns the News (2008) among others. His bestsellers, though, are the books written on Donald Trump, including Fire and Fury (2018), Siege: Trump under Fire (2019), Landslide (2021), and All or Nothing (2025).
- The lawsuit claims that Melania Trump has been threatening Michael Wolff for speaking against him.
- Wolff's claims suggest a pattern of intimidation tactics used by the Trump family against critics.
- Michael Wolff has published multiple books about the Trump family.