Melania Trump

About

Melania Trump is a Slovenian-born model married to President Donald Trump. She is the First Lady of the United States.

History

Melania Trump, born Melania Knauss, was born in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia.^[1] She began modeling at age 5 and began doing commercials at age 16. She moved to New York City at age 26 and appeared on the covers of In Style Weddings, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, and more. She became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2001. She began seeing Donald Trump in 1999 and married him in 2005. In 2006, she gave birth to her only son, Barron Trump.

Political Career

Melania played a small role in her husband's campaign in the 2016 United States Presidential Election compared to most spouses of political candidates. As first lady, she has pledged to make one of her signature efforts combating bullying in schools and cyberbullying. In February of 2017, she sued The Daily Mail for $150 million for an August 2016 article that said she had worked as an escort in her modeling days.

Speech Plagiarism

On July 18th, 2016, Melania delivered the keynote speech for the opening night of the RNC, which immediately drew accusations of plagiarism from journalists and the social media for lifting entire passages from Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, as well as bemusing speculations from internet news blogs^[2] on whether Melania inadvertently or knowingly rickrolled the audience by saying "he will never give up and, most importantly, he will never, ever let you down." On the 20th, Trump staff writer Meredith McIver took responsibility for lifting the passage from Michelle Obama's speech. The incident led to the hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes in which people attributed famous historical quotes to Melania Trump (shown below).

Nude Photo Leak

On July 30th, 2016, The New York Post^[8] published leaked photographs of Melania Trump from a nude photoshoot she did in 1995. Gawker^[9] wondered if this was a planted by Donald Trump as a distraction from the Khzir Khan Controversy Trump had embroiled himself in at the time.

Slut-shaming Debate

Melania Trump's past as a model had become a subject of debate in the campaign, as some found it unsightly that a potential future first lady had posted nude in magazines. This led to a debate on whether or not it was okay to slut-shame Melania Trump. In February of 2017, model Emily Ratajkowski tweeted a series of statements that said regardless of politics it is never okay to slutshame someone. These were covered by The Huffington Post,^[10] US News,^[11] and more.

Tweet Favorite Controversy

For 45 minutes on the evening of May 2nd, 2017, Melania Trump's personal Twitter^[3] account had favorited a tweet by @AndyOstroy^[4] that read "Seems the only #Wall @realDonaldTrump's built is the one between him and @FLOTUS #Melania #trump." Twitter instantly took notice that the tweet, only the second-ever tweet liked by Melania's account, implied that she hated her husband.

The like was removed by 10:53 that evening with no comment.^[5] Nevertheless, the moment led to speculation as to what the like meant. Bloggers from Select All, Gizmodo,^[6] BBC,^[7] and more wondered if it was done by one of Trump's social media employees, or if the tweet was favorited in earnest, falling in line with the #FreeMelania hashtag that spawned after the Inauguration of Donald Trump.

Related Memes

#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes is a satirical hashtag used to falsely attribute famous quotes and popular song lyrics to Melania Trump, the wife of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in mocking her speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, which quickly came under intense media scrutiny and accusations of plagiarism due to its similarities to a speech given by Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

On July 18th, 2016, Melania Trump delivered a speech in support of her husband's candidacy for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Following the speech, many accused her of plagiarizing portions of Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic National Convention speech (shown below).

That evening, actor Jesse Williams launched the hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrump quotes, which mocked Trump by falsely attributing famous quotes and song lyrics to her (shown below).

#FreeMelania

#FreeMelania and #SaveMelania are hashtags often accompanied by jokes that Donald Trump's wife Melania is a prisoner that is in need of being saved from her husband. During the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20th, 2017, Melania Trump was filmed briefly smiling at her husband before making what appeared to be a frown immediately after he turned away (shown below). Following the ceremony, a video clip of the moment began circulating online, with many speculating that Melania Trump was unhappy in her marriage.

On January 24th, Twitter user @Istanbul_Themes posted the clip of Melania Trump frowning at her husband's inauguration with the caption "#FreeMelania Blink twice if you want us to save you" shown below.

First Lady Portrait

Melania Trump's First Lady Portrait refers to the first official portrait of the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump, which was widely discussed and photoshopped online following after being posted to Twitter in early April 2017. On April 3rd, 2017, Melania Trump tweeted her official portrait as First Lady of the United States (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 57,000 likes and 11,000 retweets.

That day, Redditor Steve-2112 submitted the portrait in a post urging viewers to "show this wonderful FLOTUS some love" to the /r/The_Donald subreddit, where it gained over 9,100 (89% upvoted) and 220 comments in 24 hours. Meanwhile, Redditor Elelegante101 submitted the portrait to /r/photoshopbattles, where several users replied with photoshopped versions of the picture (shown below).

Kidney Surgery Conspiracy Theories

On May 14th, 2018, Melania Trump went into surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of a benign kidney condition.^[12] Recovery time for the typically-outpatient surgery was supposed to be only one day, though Trump was in the hospital for nearly a week, likely as a precaution. After Trump was reported to have returned home, Donald Trump posted a tweet in which he misspelled her name "Melanie" as he gave her well-wishes, leading to jokes on social media.^[13] However, after she was reported back from the hospital, she did not make any public appearances, leading some to wonder where she was and proffer theories about her extended disappearance. Politico^[14] posted an article reporting that the disappearance had stoked conspiracy theories including that she was cooperating in the Russiagate investigation, working on a book deal, and had moved back to New York City (of note, Politico did not link to anywhere posting such conspiracy theories). Politico's article was cited in other media outlets claiming conspiracy theories abound over Melania's disappearances.^[15][16] This led to jokes on social media about the supposed conspiracies surrounding Melania (examples shown below).

On June 1st, after weeks of conspiracy theories, Twitter^[20] user @KrangTNelson tweeted an image of a mock tweet by Melania Trump with the letters "S-H-R-E-K-R-U-L-E-S" highlighted. They captioned the image, "the First Lady is hiding secret messages in her tweets again." The post (shown below, right) received more than 3,800 retweets and 20,000 likes in less than one week.

On May 30th, Melania Trump's Twitter account tweeted that she was fine and that the media was "working overtime" to fabricate a conspiracy (shown below).

However, this only further stoked social media speculation about Melania's whereabouts, as many identified phrasings such as "working overtime" and "on behalf of the American people" as go-to phrases used when Donald Trump tweets, leading to speculation Donald ghost-wrote the tweet (example shown below). The conspiracy that Donald ghost-wrote the tweet was covered by The Huffington Post.^[17]

Her absence from the public view spurred various unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including that she had been physically abused by President Trump; had separated from Trump and moved back to New York; and that she is living with former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama.^[18]

On June 4th, Melania Trump made her first off-camera appearance, hosting an event to honor Gold Star Families at the White House, 24 days after her last sighting. A spokesperson for Melania Trump told ABC News^[19] that she, "puts her family, and certainly her health above all else, and that won't change over a rabid press corps. She's confident in what she is doing and in her role, and knows the rest is just speculation and nonsense."

That day, Daily Caller reporter Jena Greene published a video of the First Lady entering her event. Greene commented, "First public appearance by @FLOTUS in just under a month at the Gold Star Families reception to ihht. Good to see her doing well." The post received more than 830 retweets and 2,800 likes in less than 24 hours.

First public appearance by @FLOTUS in just under a month at the Gold Star Families reception to ihht. Good to see her doing well. pic.twitter.com/p6pCB4UPbi

— Jena Greene (@JenaMGreene) June 4, 2018

White House Birthday Tweet

On April 26th, 2019, the official White House Twitter^[21] account tweeted a photograph of Melania on a couch in the Oval Office surrounded by members of the media. They captioned the post, "Happy Birthday, @FLOTUS!" The post received more than 6,000 retweets and 31,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Following the post, people responded by photoshopping other people and images into the photograph. For example, Twitter^[22] user @GuillaumeTC tweeted a photoshopped version in which Russian President Vladimir Putin is sitting next to the First Lady. The post received more than 280 retweets and 1,900 likes in 24 hours (shown below, left). Throughout the day, people continued to post variants of the meme (examples below, center and right).

Several media outlets covered the photograph, including Elle,^[23] People^[24] and more.

Search Interest

External References