Amid all the speculation about why Melania Trump made her extraordinary statement to the press on Thursday, one seems to have more substance than the rest, and that is that it was a preemptive attempt to get ahead of a damaging story that would come out soon. And now we have a plausible candidate for that theory. (Thanks to anat and jenorafeuer in the comments to yesterday’s post for sending me down this rabbit hole!)

It concerns a Brazilian model named Amanda Ungaro who had been friends with Melania for over two decades, and a man named Paolo Zampolli, a close friend of the Trumps who was appointed by him as an ambassador and who claims that he was the one who introduced the Trumps to each other,

Ungaro, meanwhile, told the Times that she was a 17-year-old model when she arrived in New York in 2002 after flying on Epstein’s plane from Paris with her French agent. She never saw Epstein again but met Zampolli later that year and began a two-decade romantic relationship with him beginning when she was 19, Zampolli told the Times.

In 2023, after Zampolli made headlines for explicit text messages he allegedly sent to a sex worker, Ungaro ended the relationship, moved to Florida and married a doctor from Brazil. The former couple then became mired in a custody battle for their 15-year-old son before Ungaro and her husband were arrested in June.

Ungaro is apparently incensed by the fact that Melania did not come to her aid last year when Zampolli used his connections to the Trumps to get ICE, when she had been arrested on some fraud charges, to prevent her from being released on bail and instead had her and her Brazilian husband summarily deported by telling them that she was in the country illegally, thus enabling him to obtain custody of their 15-year old child.

This has made Ungaro furious and she has threatened to tell all that she knows about the Trumps. She has reportedly taped an interview with the Spanish magazine El Pais that will be airing this weekend. This may be what triggered Melania’s action.

Ungaro also issued a series of furious responses to Melania’s statement.

On the same day the First Lady used the White House podium to say the lies about her and Epstein needed to end, a woman who arrived in this country on Epstein’s plane — whose ex-partner introduced the Trumps, who sat at Melania’s inauguration table, and who was deported after that same ex-partner contacted ICE — was directing posts at Melania from Brazil that were being seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

Ungaro’s specific claims about her relationship with the First Lady have not been independently verified. What has been verified, by the New York Times and others, is the biography that brought her into the Trump orbit in the first place — and the series of events that removed her from it.

Ungaro’s barrage of posts on social media almost simultaneously with Melania’s statement, seemed to amount to a declaration of war.

‘I have nothing left to lose in my life. I will tear down the entire system — be careful with me b**,’ read one post. The account, which carries a blue verification badge and has been active since December 2025, cannot yet be independently confirmed as genuinely operated by Ungaro. In a follow-up, the account posted: ‘I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life. I will go all the way — I am not afraid.’

She then directed attention at the Trumps directly. ‘Maybe you should be afraid of what I know… of who you are, and who your husband is,’ she posted, adding that she intended to ‘take legal action’ against both Melania and Donald Trump.

There’s more.

“I have nothing left to lose in my life,” Ungaro posted on X early Thursday. “I will tear down the entire system — be careful with me b****.”

A minute earlier, Ungaro, the former partner of Trump ally Paolo Zampolli, vowed to expose the first lady while invoking the president.

In another reply to an archived post from Melania’s former @FLOTUS45 account, Ungaro vowed to “take legal action” against Trump and her “pedophile husband” while alleging long-standing ties to former model.

“I will tear down your corrupt system, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life,” Ungaro posted. “I will go all the way — I am not afraid. Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your husband is.”

“I have known you for 20 years,” Ungaro posted. “You knew I was detained in ICE. You were present in my life — every year on my son’s birthday, even sending Secret Service and being the first to congratulate him, back in 2016. Something was clearly wrong, but I am not part of any evil mission involving children. So what did you do, Melania? You tried to involve me, but you failed — because I have character.”

So there we are. Melania’s attempt to stop the damage may have backfired because now people will be anxiously waiting to see what appears on El Pais

And who knows, this may not even be the main story. Maybe there’s other stuff that will emerge. As with all things concerning the Trump’s, you never reach rock bottom.