Is Melania Trolling Donald? Here Are 5 Times the First Lady Threw Him Major Public Shade
Even though Melania Trump has been married to U.S. President Donald Trump since 2005, there isn’t much proof that she actually loves him. In fact, there’s increasing evidence that she downright despises him, as Melania Trump shade gets thrown pretty regularly. Just check out these five examples of when she’s publicly made her distaste for her orange hubby pretty damn obvious.
Here are our five favorite instances of premium Melania Trump shade:
1. She scowled at him during his inauguration.
You’d think the first lady of the United States would smile big on her husband’s Inauguration Day — the day he becomes one of the most powerful people on Earth — but you’d be dead wrong.
While Rev. Franklin Graham delivered a prayer at Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony, Donald turned to say something to his wife. Melania smiled brightly as her husband spoke to her, but as soon as he turned his back, she not only stopped smiling but turned downright stone-faced, almost as if she were grieving.
Perhaps it was his words or her having to stand in the cold and rainy weather. (Our bet is that she was less than thrilled to become First Lady, which is just a much a “job” as the presidential cabinet.) Either way, this Melania Trump shade set the perfect tone for their seemingly unhappy marriage.
2. She doesn’t like holding her husband’s hand in public.
We’ve come to expect first ladies to play the endlessly doting wife, supporting their husbands in small, affectionate ways. But Melania doesn’t like playing nicey-nice for the cameras — not one bit.
While walking towards the plane to depart from Donald’s 2017 state trip to Israel, he tried to hold her hand and she deftly batted it away with a small flick of the wrist. She knew cameras were rolling but did it anyway, and people definitely noticed.
She also did something similar when accompanying Donald to an Ohio speech in February 2018, around the time rumors of Donald’s alleged affair with porn performer Stormy Daniels had dominated U.S. headlines. Posing for cameras, he tried to grab Melania’s hand, but she kept her arms under the coat draped upon her shoulders, even moving away slightly as he tried to play the happy couple.
Not today, Satan. Not today.
She also famously took a separate motorcade to attend her husband’s first-ever State of the Union address on Jan. 30, 2018, rather than showing up at his side — an unprecedented piece of Melania Trump shade showing she didn’t even want to be in the same car as him. Yeesh.
3. She began an initiative to stop cyber-bullying, the one thing her husband is best known for.
In May 2018, Melania unveiled the #BeBest campaign, a child-focused initiative to discourage online cyberbullying. It’s the sort of inoffensive public initiative we’ve come to expect from first ladies, kind of how Lady Bird Johnson planted wildflowers along interstate highways or Michelle Obama encouraged kids to eat healthier and become more physically fit.
The only difference is that Melania’s campaign aims to stop the very behavior that her husband is best known for: mocking and bullying other people online.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Donald’s Twitter account knows that he gives his political rivals disparaging nicknames like “Crooked Hilary,” “Crazy Bernie” and “Pocahontas” (for Elizabeth Warren, mocking her claims to Native American heritage). He tweets against any person or business who dares criticize him. He even called his former public liaison director Omarosa Manigault Newman a “crazed crying lowlife” and a “dog.”
Days after that last incident, Melania spoke at a cyberbullying summit, calling it “destructive and harmful,” adding, “Most children are more aware of the benefits and pitfalls of social media than some adults.”
Oh really, Melania? Which adults are you referring to? That is some grade-A Melania Trump shade.
4. She directly contradicted her husband’s insult of LeBron James.
In an interview with CNN anchor Don Lemon, L.A. Lakers basketball player LeBron James said that Donald had used professional sports to divide America, a reference to Donald calling the NFL players who knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality “unpatriotic” and “disrespectful.”
In response, Donald tweeted, “LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy to do,” insulting both black men (typical for Donald’s brand of racism).
LeBron replied via tweet, “Who’s the real dummy? A man who puts kids in classrooms or one who puts kids in cages? #BeBest,” a reference to the fact that LeBron founded a school for at-risk kids in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.
When asked for a comment on the men’s Twitter exchange, Melania’s spokesperson said, “It looks like LeBron James is working to do good things on behalf of our next generation and just as she always has, the First Lady encourages everyone to have an open dialogue about issues facing children today.”
She then talked about her own work with kids in the #BeBest initiative, having praised the athlete he put down, a classy bit of Melania Trump shade. (If only she was as vocally opposed to his other racist statements, including Trump’s infamous “birther” bullshit, which Melania actually spouted as well.)
5. She doesn’t sleep in same bed as him, no matter where they are.
Being president is stressful, and it helps to have a loving partner who comforts you in bed after a long day of confronting world problems and dealing with press scrutiny. But Donald don’t get no spooning from Melania, no ma’am.
In a rather unflattering profile of Melania recently run by The New York Times, an observer reported that their relationship behind closed doors “is not particularly warm.” One person said, “Mrs. Trump [seemed] far more relaxed outside the presence of her husband than when he was around.”
Another noted they keep separate bedrooms in the White House and stay in separate hotel suites whenever they travel. If you’re wondering why, it might have something to do with Trump’s numerous rumored affairs or the fact that Melania once liked a tweet mentioning how she can’t stand her husband.
When your own wife doesn’t wanna sleep with you, that’s matrimonial shade on an epically personal level.
