Wednesday 20 March 2019

Does Melania Trump really use a body double? Trump says no

A recent public appearance has reignited internet rumours that the White House occasionally employs a body double to stand in for the first lady.

Donald and Melania Trump visited the town of Opelika in Alabama on Friday 8 March to survey the damage done to the state by a recent tornado, a natural disaster in which 23 people lost their lives.

The president and first lady spent time signing Bibles and paying their respects to local people at a makeshift relief centre on what was a deeply sombre occasion, expressing their support for residents and handing out supplies.

But one picture of Mrs Trump, stood holding hands with her husband before a row of white crosses outside the Providence Baptist Church, struck some observers as very odd indeed.

The woman in the press shot, taken by Nicholas Kamm of AFP, just didn't look like Melania.
"So everyone has just accepted that they use a fake melania sometimes", one Twitter user asked.

"It's crazy to me that every news organization isn't working full time on the Melania stunt double story," wrote another.

President Trump has since hit out at the story on Twitter after the Fox and Friends breakfast show devoted a segment to it, accusing the media of photoshopping the original. "They are only getting more deranged with time!" he fumed.
The suspicion the White House routinely uses a body double in place of the real Mrs Trump, an old security ploy once used to safeguard dictators like Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein, is not new.

According to Snopes, it was first pitched on Facebook by actress Andrea Wagner Barton and on Twitter by Joe Vargas (founder and CEO of CBD Dispensary, a Las Vegas-based retailer of hemp syrup) on 18 October 2017, both posting videos of the first lady stood mute and nodding beside her husband:
President Trump rather hurriedly referring to, "My wife Melania, she's right here", certainly roused suspicion and an accompanying picture tweeted by Vargas appeared to show a completely different woman, with broader nostrils and a flatter chin, those distinctive eyes concealed behind huge Jackie Kennedy sunglasses.

The suggestion that the Trumps were employing a body double took Twitter by storm, with the perennially-paranoid keen to promote it as the latest evidence of sinister government deception, rarely stopping to ask what interest the state might have in concealing the real Melania.

The hysteria eventually forced a denial from East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham, who told CNN: "Once again, we find ourselves consumed with a ridiculous non-story when we could be talking about the work the first lady is doing on behalf of children, including the opioid crisis that is gripping our nation."

In other words, the White House turned the story to its advantage, using the "ridiculous non-story" as further evidence in support of President Trump's "fake news" narrative, used to attack and discredit media outlets hostile to his agenda.

The trope returned in July 2018 when a windswept Melania was seen descending the steps of Air Force One as she and her husband arrived in Brussels for a Nato summit.
A popular theory about the Melania doppleganger is that a Secret Service agent assigned to protect her periodically takes her place at affairs of state.

One Twitter user noticed over the weekend that the first lady and her bodyguard even wear the same ring on their left hands, only adding to the intrigue.
"The United States Secret Service doesn't use body doubles," former agent Jonathan Wackrow categorically told CNN in response to the first incident in 2017.

"Mrs Trump's lead agent is a woman... and she happens to look a little like her, but physically, she is much shorter," he said.

The desire to believe Melania Trump might wish to duck out of official engagements springs from the popular assumption she dislikes her public duties and is a reluctant first lady.

Or even hates her husband so much she can't stand to be around him.

While Melania has said little about the president's alleged extramarital affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, her habits of batting away the President's hand and walking well behind him have been noted.

The Huffington Post even tasked a body language expert to assess the behaviour two years ago, Jacqueline Whitmore concluding the patterns "could be perceived as a sign of disrespect".

Her initial decision to stay in New York rather than join her husband in Washington after his inauguration, apparently to shield their then 10-year-old son Barron from the media spotlight, was regarded as highly suspect.

As was her disappearance from public view in May 2018 while she recovered from a kidney operation, which forced her to tweet reassuring her followers she is alive and well.
If Melania Trump really does loathe her role so much she'd rather hire an imposter than be on public view - as indicated by her notorious "I really don't care, do u?" army coat -  it is, to an extent, understandable.

Her White House Christmas decorations are routinely derided as "scary" and her anti-bullying agenda is either undermined by her husband overtly bullying his rivals on the world stage or picked apart for rehashing old Obama-era pamphlets with a new cover.

French first lady Brigitte Macron described Melania as "very fun" behind closed doors when they met last year but observed she is subject to so much criticism "she can't even open a window" without being criticised.

Why not let someone else take the flack once in a while?

(Source: Independent





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