Jonny Greenwood Demands ‘Phantom Thread’ Score Be Removed From ‘Melania’ Documentary

Radiohead – Jonny Greenwood second on the left(Credit: Tom Sheehan)

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, along with director Paul Thomas Anderson, has demanded that his score from Anderson’s Phantom Thread film be removed from the Melania Trump documentary.

In addition to his career as a multi-instrumentalist and arranger of Radiohead’s music, Jonny Greenwood has written music for 12 films, including the Paul Thomas Anderson films There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2018), and One Battle After Another (2025).

Louder Sound reports that a section of music from the Phantom Thread soundtrack appears in the new Brett Ratner-directed Amazon documentary, Melania, about the US First Lady. According to a joint statement, neither Greenwood nor Anderson is happy about it and is demanding that the music be removed.

“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” the pair remarked in a joint statement to Variety.

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

Consequence of Sound notes that the Melania documentary also includes tracks such as Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter.

The Phantom Thread soundtrack includes eighteen tracks written by Greenwood for the film. Following its release, the musician received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Music.

In November, Radiohead performed their first show in seven years. They marked the occasion with a massive 25-song set in Spain.

For the first show of Radiohead’s 2025 tour, there was a surprising amount of focus on their 2003 album, Hail To The Thief, along with 1997’s OK Computer—both albums receiving six songs on the set.

Other albums represented included 2007’s In Rainbows and 2000’s Kid A (four songs apiece), 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool (two songs), and 2001’s Amnesiac, 1997’s The Bends, and 2012’s The King Of Limbs (one song apiece). No new songs were premiered. The day before the show, the band sound-checked a whopping 28 songs.

Last year, singer Thom Yorke and guitarist Ed O’Brien addressed the band’s lengthy hiatus ahead of the shows.

Admitting that “the wheels came off a bit,” Yorke acknowledged the passing of his first wife, Rachel Owen and the difficulties in processing his grief. Ed O’Brien also detailed that he and his bandmates felt “disconnected” during their A Moon Shaped Pool tour.