British newspaper forced to apologize and compensate for publishing false news about Melania Trump

US First Lady Melania Trump. Photo:NY Times.

NewspaperDaily TelegraphThe British tabloid today published a letter of apology to US First Lady Melania Trump for an article headlined "Melania's Secret" that was published last week. The newspaper admitted to "irresponsible" reporting and said it would pay Mrs. Trump's legal costs.

The Daily Telegraph said some of the information in the article was wrong, including that Melaniastruggled in her modeling career before meeting her husband, now US President Donald Trump, and she cried on election night.The newspaper admitted that the information should not have been published.

They clarified that Melania was "a successful professional model before she met her husband and built her own career without his help."The British newspaper also admitted to an error in reporting that Melania's parents and sister moved to New York in 2005 to live in buildings owned by Mr. Trump. Mrs. Melania's father was not a "scary person" and "did not manage the family" as the previous article said.

Melania did not drop out of her university design and architecture course for reasons related to completing an exam but simply because she wanted to pursue a successful career as a professional model, the apology letter added.

In April 2017, the British Daily Mail had to pay Melania Trump a sum of money for publishing an article saying that she had worked as a prostitute in the 1990s before her marriage. Melania's lawyers said at the time that she flatly denied the accusation as "100% false, causing great harm to her personal and professional reputation". The Daily Mail retracted the information a month later.