Colbert’s ‘Melania 2.0’ Gloats Over Jeff Bezos’ $40M Check

First lady Melania Trump is back on the national stage—just in time for her comedic doppelgänger to make a triumphant 2025 return to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Late-night host Stephen Colbert welcomed “Melania 2.0″ Monday night, pitch-perfectly played as always by Broadway star Laura Benanti, who described her new look as “giving background actor on Suits or lawyer for tables.”

Since returning to Washington, the fake Melania revealed that she “had a great talk with Elon Musk about eliminating federal jobs—hopefully starting with first lady.” And she also shared some details about her eye-popping $40 million deal with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to produce an authorized documentary about her life.

Pushing back on the idea that it’s all just an attempt to “cash in” on her second term as first lady, she said, “I believe in that project so much that I would have taken that $40 million for free.”

Colbert’s Melania also replied to accusations that she is “grifting” her supporters by releasing her own crypto meme coin. “No, what?!” she asked. “Their money is just a gift to me. After all, you can’t spell grift without gift. And you can’t spell gift without if. But if will never become I because I don’t give an F.”

And finally, she described the state of the union ahead of her husband’s big speech to Congress on Tuesday night as a lot like herself: “Trapped in a bad relationship with Donald Trump, just praying he doesn’t screw us any more than he already has.”

For more, listen to Laura Benanti talk about playing Melania Trump on The Last Laugh podcast.