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Melania Trump met Wednesday in the White House Blue Room with freed American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel and his wife, Aviva Siegel, whose captivity story is featured in her new documentary, “Melania.” The meeting took place in Washington, and it followed the film’s release last week.
Trump said she met the Siegels in New York in January 2025, after Aviva Siegel had been freed and called her to set up a meeting. She described the exchange as emotional and said it was captured on camera for the film, which she said is available to see in her documentary.
The first lady said Aviva Siegel gave her two books written by Keith Siegel and that, after the meeting, she brought the books home and told Donald Trump about the situation. She said she knew the president was “fighting for all of the hostages” and that, as she learned later, “all of the hostages are free and home with the families.”
As the meeting continued, Trump turned to address Keith Siegel directly, telling him she was “happy to see you healthy and home with your children, your grandchildren, with your family.” She said Aviva Siegel “was a warrior” who fought hard for Keith and that she knows he “suffered a lot.”
Keith Siegel thanked Donald Trump and Melania Trump, and he and Aviva Siegel also complimented Melania Trump on the documentary. In the meeting, Keith Siegel said he wanted to thank her “for being a caring, compassionate person and for supporting and helping Aviva during those difficult days,” and he said she “helped her enormously, in many ways,” describing the moment of saying that “in person” while sitting next to her.
Aviva Siegel told the first lady their meeting “gave me so much hope,” saying she could feel her heart with her. Trump had promised to pray for Keith during the film and, she said, she would “always use my influence and power to fight for those in need.”
The Siegels were among some 251 people taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel. The Associated Press reported that Keith Siegel was held for 484 days until his release in February 2025 under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Israel, and that Aviva Siegel was held for 51 days before being freed in November 2023 under a previous ceasefire.
Trump said she had not publicly disclosed the January 2025 meeting with Aviva Siegel before the documentary opened in theaters last Friday. The account in the film includes scenes of the first lady comforting Aviva Siegel as she expressed concern for her husband and began to cry.
At the White House event, a reporter asked whether it was appropriate for Trump to use an official event to promote the documentary, described in the report as an Amazon-funded film. Trump said she was not doing that, adding that the White House appearance involved “celebrating the release of the hostages, of Aviva and Keith,” and that the Siegels had asked to come to the White House “to thank me and to give hugs.”
In the film’s end credits, the report said the documentary includes title cards that list accomplishments from Trump’s first year back as first lady, including that she “played a key role in securing the release of Keith Siegel” after 484 days as a hostage in Gaza, described in the report as occurring “just 12 days after the inauguration.”