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Melania’s Surprise Epstein Denial Makes a Lot More Sense When You Know Who Amanda Ungaro Is

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The deported ex says she knows where the bodies are buried.

The only reason why I still have a Twitter account is that that’s where you find the real tea.

As you all know, Melania Trump went in front of the cameras at the White House yesterday to tell the country she has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody seemed to know what prompted it. Her husband says he didn’t know she was gonna do it. Her own staff didn’t know the topic until she started talking. The Epstein story had basically died down, because everyone’s been focused on Iran. And she just walked out there and revived it.

So why now?

Her adviser said “enough is enough” and “the lies must stop.”

Sure. But she did something weird.

She acknowledged the 2002 email she sent Ghislaine Maxwell, the one where she complimented a New York magazine profile of Epstein and signed off “Love, Melania.” She called it a reply. Twice. Except the Daily Beast found no sign of an earlier email from Maxwell in the files. It wasn’t a reply. She reached out. Maxwell wrote back and called her “sweet pea.”

And then Melania pivoted to calling on Congress to hold public hearings for Epstein’s victims - under oath. Her husband’s administration has been doing everything possible to make this go away. Pam Bondi just refused a subpoena the day before to testify. The whole White House message has been “time to move on.” And the First Lady is out here asking for sworn testimony. Most of the reporting says that everyone in the White House was “stunned.”

None of this makes sense - until you know who Amanda Ungaro is.

Ungaro is a Brazilian former model. She came to the US in 2002 at 17, on Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express. She’s on the flight logs. Her agent was Jean-Luc Brunel, the modeling scout accused of recruiting girls for Epstein, who was found hanged in a Paris prison cell in 2022 while awaiting trial on charges of raping minors.

Ungaro told a Brazilian newspaper she saw about 30 girls on that flight, most of them between 14 and 16. She watched some of them disappear to the back of the plane with Epstein and Maxwell. Brunel tried to get her to carry a suspicious package. She refused.

After she landed in New York, she ended up at Paolo Zampolli’s modeling agency. And this is where it all connects.

Zampolli is the guy who brought Melania to America from Slovenia in 1996. Got her the visa. Introduced her to Trump at a party in 1998. Trump has confirmed this himself. Zampolli’s name shows up several times in the Epstein files. He and Epstein tried to buy Elite Model Management together in 2004. Epstein visited his agency.

In one email from the files, Epstein warned a businessman that “Zampoli is trouble.” Zampolli currently works in the Trump administration as special envoy for global partnerships and sits on the Kennedy Center board.

Ungaro and Zampolli were together for almost 20 years. They have a teenage son. They sat at Melania’s table at the first inauguration dinner. Ungaro even served as Grenada’s UN ambassador for youth affairs. They split around 2018 and Zampolli later claimed they were never actually married, which was news to basically everyone.

Then last June, Ungaro got arrested in Miami on fraud charges at a medical spa. Her new husband made bail. She didn’t. Because according to the New York Times, Zampolli called a senior ICE official named David Venturella, told him Ungaro was on an expired visa, and asked about getting her transferred to federal custody. Venturella called the Miami field office. He mentioned the case was important to someone close to the White House.

Zampolli says he just asked what was going on. DHS says it wasn’t political. But Ungaro got picked up by ICE before she could post bail and was deported to Brazil. She eventually agreed to leave because she thought staying in detention would cost her custody of her kid. Her son went to Brazil with her, then went back to Zampolli.

The man who introduced the President to the First Lady went to ICE about the mother of his child, the New York Times reported - he denies it - and she got deported. And this woman says she’s known Melania for 20 years. She was at their events. She was close to Melania’s parents. She rode on Epstein’s plane as a teenager.

Now she’s in Brazil posting on X, tagging Melania directly. Saying she’ll expose everything she knows. Threatening legal action. Saying she has nothing left to lose.

But wait - there’s more.

The Epstein files from January include a redacted FBI proffer from 2019, three days after Epstein’s arrest. An immunity witness told federal agents that Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump. Not Zampolli. Epstein. Lying under a proffer agreement is a federal crime. The White House says the files may contain unverified claims. Melania has been threatening to sue people who link her to Epstein. Wolff. Hunter Biden. The Daily Beast already caved and retracted. Hunter’s response was “F**k that. That’s not gonna happen.” He refused to retract and basically dared them to depose both Trumps. Wolff sued her over the threat.

And then Zampolli popped up after Melania’s speech to tell the Daily Mail he’s ready to testify under oath that he made the introduction. Melania just asked Congress to set up hearings.

So - to sum up - a woman who was on Epstein’s plane, who spent almost 20 years at the side of a Trump insider, gets deported after the man who introduced Donald and Melania went to ICE about her, according to the Times. She starts threatening to talk. The Epstein files contain a witness’s statement to the FBI, given under an immunity deal, that contradicts the official story of how the Trumps met. And then Melania makes a surprise statement to deny everything, while her key witness volunteers to back her up and her husband pretends he didn’t know it was happening.

Melania doesn’t do public statements like this. She doesn’t blindside the West Wing - her office says they knew a statement was coming, but won’t say if anyone there knew the topic. She doesn’t voluntarily bring up the one scandal her husband’s team has been trying to bury. Whatever Amanda Ungaro knows, it was enough to make all of that happen on a Thursday afternoon. And now everyone is talking about the Epstein files again.

Ungaro was 17 on that plane. She was still 17 when she and Zampolli got together, and he was 32. She spent almost two decades at his side, in and around Trump world. And when she became a problem, they shipped her out of the country.

So - now we wait. To see if she follows through on her threats - or if this is all just another nothingburger.

Sources

Correction, September 27th, 2026: This essay first said Ungaro’s lawyers say Zampolli started pursuing her at 15 - every account, including her own, puts her at 17 when they got together. It also said the Epstein files hold sworn testimony about how the Trumps met - it was a witness’s FBI interview under an immunity deal; that Melania held a press conference - she read a statement and took no questions; that Zampolli is in the Epstein files dozens of times - it’s several; that Ungaro held a UN ambassadorship to Grenada through Zampolli’s connections - she was Grenada’s UN ambassador for youth affairs; that Wolff sued Melania back - he sued her after she threatened to sue him; that the girls who went to the back of the plane were never seen again - Ungaro didn’t say that; and that Brunel was awaiting trial for trafficking girls - the charges were raping minors and sexual harassment.

Update, September 27th, 2026: A few lines now say who says so - that Ungaro says she knows where the bodies are buried and has known Melania for 20 years, that the Daily Beast found no earlier email from Maxwell, and that it was the New York Times that reported Zampolli went to ICE about her before she was deported, which he denies - and a few add context about Brunel, Melania’s lawsuit threats, the West Wing and Ungaro’s years around Trump world, while a detail about the email’s subject line is gone.