Who posted the Boston Craigslist ad offering $50 to see Melania, and were any payments confirmed?

1. What the ad said and where it appeared

The listing invited people to “Attend MELANIA documentary at any Boston area theatre during opening weekend” offering free tickets plus $50 per occupied seat provided attendees “remain in seat for entirety of film,” and it was posted on the Boston Craigslist events/jobs page where the specific listing could be viewed before being taken down ^{[2] [5] [3]}.

2. Verification and viral spread

Local and national outlets confirmed the Craigslist posting’s existence after it was shared widely on social media; producer Nate Gilbert and others circulated screenshots and links that drew attention to the claim that someone was offering cash to fill seats in Boston screenings ^{[3] [6]}. News organizations repeated the text of the ad as part of broader coverage of the film’s weak box-office rollout and the apparent contrast with public claims of “selling out” ^{[5] [4]}.

3. Who posted the ad — what reporting can and cannot say

Reporting does not identify the person or organization behind the Craigslist ad; none of the sourced articles attribute the listing to Amazon MGM Studios, director Brett Ratner, or any confirmed campaign or political operator, and several explicitly note there is no evidence linking the offer to the film’s distributor or director ^{[1] [4]}. Craigslist postings are often anonymous and the sources that covered the ad did not produce documentation tying an identifiable individual or group to the listing, so the poster’s identity remains unreported in the available coverage ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Were any payments confirmed?

No outlet in the collected reporting confirmed that anyone received the promised $50 payments; coverage describes the listing as “viral” and “suspicious,” with journalists and aggregators noting that it might be a troll or a joke and that legitimacy remained unclear — and the ad was later suspended or held for review on Craigslist, which undercuts public evidence of follow-through ^{[1] [4] [7]}. In short, there is no verified evidence in these reports that payments were ever made to attendees.

5. Motives, context, and competing explanations

Reporters placed the ad in the context of unusually poor early ticket sales for the documentary and a massive marketing spend reportedly tied to the film, prompting speculation that seat-filling or paid attendance might be attempted by someone with an interest in inflating audience numbers; but the same reporting also presented alternative explanations — trolling, independent opportunism, or even misinformation spread for clicks — and stressed the lack of a verified connection to official marketing efforts ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

6. What remains unknown and why it matters

Because Craigslist allows anonymous or pseudonymous postings and because the press accounts relied on screenshots, social sharing, and a now-suspended listing, the identity of the poster and any chain of payments are not established in the available sources; that gap means claims about deliberate seat-buying tied to the film’s backers cannot be substantiated by the cited reporting ^{[2] [1]}. The absence of confirmed payments is important: it separates an attention-grabbing viral claim from documented attempts to manipulate box-office figures.

7. Bottom line

The Boston Craigslist ad offering $50 to watch Melania was a real posting that circulated widely and was later suspended, but news coverage does not identify who posted it and provides no verified evidence that the promised payments were made ^{[2] [1] [4]}. Observers should treat the claim about paid attendees as unproven until a credible source produces documentation tying a named organizer to payments or receipts.