First lady’s ‘brand’ ruined: latest suit

Melania Trump filed her third defamation suit against the Mail Online over an August 2016 article that accused her of having once been a prostitute — arguing for the first time that it ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to cash in on her husband’s presidency.

“Mail Online’s conduct was extreme and outrageous in falsely making the scurrilous charge that the future First Lady of the United States worked as a prostitute,” the suit reads.

“Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-alifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person . . . to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multimillion-dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.

“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance,” according to the $150 million filing.

The papers — filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by her lawyer Charles Harder, who won Hulk Hogan a $140 million verdict against Gawker — claim the statements in the article, which was later retracted, “also constitute defamation per se because they impugned on her fitness to perform her duties as First Lady of the United States.”

Its filing comes after a Maryland judge tossed a similar claim against the Mail, as the site is not based there.

Melania Trump (right) has also sued the Daily Mail newspaper, in the UK, over a version of the article that ran in print. The Mail Online is based in New York.

The article, “Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won’t go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife,” was read by millions of people, the suit says.

The White House could not be reached for comment.