How did “Gimme Shelter” end up in the Melania documentary? Not because Mick Jagger agreed to it.

For the seven people who saw the Melania documentary, they were greeted with a sequence soundtracked by “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. Setting aside how tone deaf it was to use a song that sings about “rape and murder” for a moment, how did producers get permission to use the song? Haven’t The Stones complained about the use of their music in Trump rallies in the past. Yes. Yes, they have.

Yet producer Marc Beckman says that the filmmakers worked with Mick Jagger to secure use of the song and “gave us his blessing.” I quote from The Guardian:

“We worked very close with them on that,” Beckman continued. “And that wasn’t a political thing. With the Stones, they were just like, ‘Oh, you’re making a nice movie.’ They were like able to get over the hurdle. It’s not politics – it’s just some story about some woman that is going from being a civilian back into the White House, and this movie looks cool and Brett [Ratner] is doing a cool job and Melania Trump is focused, and let’s do it. We showed it to them and they were impressed.”

Uh, no. A source close to Jagger says that neither he nor the band had anything to do with it. The deal was negotiated by ABKCO, the rights management company founded by the devious late Allen Klein. ABKCO, which has the freedom to negotiate deals that will make money for The Stones, exercised their power.

You can bet there were some angry meetings and phone calls with ABKCO.