REUTERS/Joe Skipper
U.S. first lady Melania Trump listens to students perform as she and China's first lady Peng Liyuan (not pictured) visit Bak Middle School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 7, 2017.
Britain's Daily Mail agreed on Wednesday to pay Melania Trump an undisclosed sum and issue an apology after the news group published an article about her previous professional work as a model.In an article published during the US presidential election, the Daily Mail claimed the future first lady had worked as an escort during her modeling career.
She had filed a $150 million (120 million pound) lawsuit against the Daily Mail's owner in New York claiming the article had cost her millions of dollars in potential business.
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail apologized for the article and said it would issue a retraction.
"We have agreed to pay her damages and costs," it said.
A person familiar with the situation said the settlement was worth less than $3 million, including legal costs and damages.
Here's the full statement from the Daily Mail:
The Mail Online website and the Daily Mail newspaper published an article on 20th August 2016 about Melania Trump which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model, and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling. The article included statements that Mrs. Trump denied the allegations and Paulo Zampolli, who ran the modelling agency, also denied the allegations, and the article also stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations. The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually met, and "staged" their actual meeting as a "ruse."
We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them. We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs Trump's two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs.
(Reporting by Costas Pitas and Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)