LONDON — British tabloid the Daily Mail and the Mail Online website agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to First Lady Melania Trump on Wednesday over an article they published containing allegations that "she had provided services beyond simply modelling."
The paper and website apologized and agreed to pay damages and costs after the first lady filed a $150 million lawsuit over a story published in August last year.
The apology said that the story had "questioned the nature of her work as a professional model, and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling."
"We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them," it added. "We apologize to Mrs. Trump for any distress that our publication caused her."
Trump's lawsuit said she was seeking damages of $150 million. The amount agreed was not made public, although a source familiar with the situation told Reuters that the settlement was worth less than $3 million.
Both parties accepted the apology at London's High Court, according to the BBC.
The story ran in the newspaper under the headline: "Racy photos, and troubling questions about his wife's past that could derail Trump," as well as on the website Mail Online.
It was retracted with an apology less than two weeks after publication, with the media organization saying there was "no support for the allegations" and that "the point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue."
