Melania Trump, 48, returned to the White House on March 10 with a little spring in her step, wearing a trench jacket, skinny black jeans and matching boots. The First Lady arrived in Washington D.C. with her husband President Donald Trump, 72, and their son Barron, 12, two days after they jetted out of town to Alabama to visit the victims of the deadly tornado tragedy. Her return also came while Twitter was still abuzz with the “#FakeMelania” conspiracy theory that she was replaced with a body double during the couple’s trip out of town, which included a stay at their Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
The hashtag was trending on March 9 as people pored over pics of the president and First Lady, picking apart her image to back up the popular theory that she had been replaced by a secret agent. Twitter users obsessed over everything from Melania’s height to the fact that she held her husband’s hand during their Alabama visit.
The whole trend was one of the Hot Topics addressed on The View on March 11. “Some people think that the First Lady is using an imposter to stand in for her. You mean there are two women that have to pretend they’re listening to him?” comedian Joy Behar joked. Meanwhile her co-host Sunny Hostin said, “I spent like an hour on Saturday involved in this. Melania is a very tall, statuesque woman and the one that we saw – the first one that we showed – she looks kind of short.”
Political commentator Ana Navarro, explained her fascination with the Twitter trend by saying, “Political reality right now is so absurd that you would almost believe anything. I think this is crazy and absurd but it’s also funny. And we need to laugh. For me the laughing part is a coping mechanism.”
Maybe Ana should tell that to Melania’s publicist Stephanie Grisham who was not amused at all by the speculation. She tweeted a clip of The View segment with a stinging rebuke.
.@flotus & @potus traveled to Alabama to pay their respects & comfort victims of the tornado devastation. In typical fashion, @theview chooses to laugh in the face of tragedy. Shameful. https://t.co/KzG2c4Th4a
— Stephanie Grisham (@StephGrisham45) March 11, 2019
“.@flotus & @potus traveled to Alabama to pay their respects & comfort victims of the tornado devastation,” she tweeted. “In typical fashion, @theview chooses to laugh in the face of tragedy. Shameful.” No word yet on what the First Lady herself thinks about #FakeMelania.