In August CNN sent a request to Skyhorse Publishing to interview Melania Trump about her self-titled memoir, set to debut on Oct. 8.
The publisher responded with an absurd demand: “CNN shall pay a licensing fee of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000).” They also insisted CNN sign an NDA about the fee.
The news giant declined to sign the agreement.
When asked about the fee, Skyhorse recanted and insisted it was a mistake. “Neither Melania nor anyone from her team knew anything about the NDA and the document that was sent reflected an internal miscommunication,” Tony Lyons, the president of the publishing house, told CNN.
“Had CNN signed an NDA, in the normal course of business, we would have approached Melania’s team to discuss [specifics of the interview].”
The proposed fee was part of a “Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement” would have needed to be signed by any and every CNN employee that worked on the interview. Any breaches would result in a fee of $100,000. The contract also specifically dictated that the payment was for “an interview with a media company — CNN — as well as for licensing photos and excerpts from the book.”
Newsrooms by and large have rules in place that prohibit paying anyone for an interview. As CNN also noted, a request like this from a former first lady or her representative is “highly unusual.”
Anita McBride, director of The Legacies of America’s First Ladies Initiative at American University and a former special assistant in the George W. Bush White House, told CNN that though first ladies have been paid to write books, never has one been paid to give an interview.
“It is a consistent practice with Mrs. Trump to make the choices that work for her and to be unburdened by any past practice by anyone else. She is her own enterprise when it comes to everything in her life,” she said, “That’s the premise of her book. I’ve made my choices and not constricted by anyone else before her.”
Perhaps also highly unusual is the promotional material for the memoir itself, at least according to the network’s anchor Anderson Cooper. A clearly bemused Cooper was rendered nearly speechless when he first glimpsed a black and white photo of Trump in which half her face is shadowed.
“I’m sorry, it’s the first time I’ve seen that, that’s the weirdest promo I’ve ever seen. Like the lighting,” he said before he made a surprised face. “I’m sorry, I’ve written four books. I’ve never seen a promo like that.”
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