Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood want Phantom Thread music removed from Melania

Film director Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood have requested their Phantom Thread music to be removed from the Melania Trump documentary.

Melania follows the twenty day period before Donald Trump's 2025 presidential inauguration, navigating her "preparations for the role of first lady once again". In the documentary, which arrived in cinemas last month, a piece of 2017 Phantom Thread film music was used.

Phantom Thread was directed by Anderson, and featured a score from Greenwood. Both have now requested for the music to be removed from Melania, saying that it is a “breach” of their agreement.

“While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement,” said Anderson and Greenwood in a statement obtained and published by Variety.

“As a result, Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary,” they added.

At the time of writing, production team behind Melania have not yet publicly responded to the request, and the music remains in the documentary.

Jonny Greenwood and Paul Thomas Anderson have worked together for nearly two decades now, with the Radiohead guitarist writing scores for Anderson’s films such as 2012’s The Master, 2021’s Licorice Pizza, and most recently, 2025’s One Battle After Another.

Melania was directed by Brett Ratner, known for films like the Rush Hour series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Since 2017, several women came forward with allegations of sexual assault by the director. Melania marks Ratner's return to Hollywood after the scandal broke almost a decade ago.

Amazon, Disney, Netflix, and Paramount Pictures bid for streaming rights to Melania. Disney offered about $14million (€11.76million), losing out to Amazon’s $40million (€33.6million), making it the highest amount ever paid for a documentary.