Secret lovers, separate living spaces, and creepy body doubles. Donald and Melania Trump's marriage has sparked endless speculation — but these wild conspiracy theories take things to a whole new level.
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00:00Secret lovers, separate living spaces, and creepy body doubles — Donald and Melania
00:05Trump's marriage has sparked endless speculation. But these wild conspiracy theories take things
00:09to a whole new level.
00:12While most people marry for love these days, there are many rumors that Donald and Melania
00:16Trump only got married because it would benefit both of them. According to Melania's former
00:20best friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, their relationship is more pragmatic than anything
00:24else. She told CNN's Jake Tapper,
00:26By marrying Donald, Melania really did get to be the vogue cover model that she's always
00:30wanted to be — that supermodel. And by marrying Melania, Donald was legitimized as trying
00:35to get away from that whole playboy mentality that everyone wanted to characterize him as.
00:38I do believe it's a transactional marriage.
00:41For Donald, Melania was also a lot easier to deal with than his first wife, Ivana. His
00:45friend, Federico Pignatelli, told Vanity Fair,
00:48Ivana Trump was an intelligent, very strong-minded person and very feisty. While instead, Melania?
00:53Really no fights.
00:55When Donald Trump became president for the first time, Melania didn't join him in the
00:58White House right away. Using their son, Barron, and his school schedule as an excuse to stay
01:02in New York City, the first lady only moved to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2017.
01:07In The Art of Her Deal, The Untold Story of Melania Trump, journalist Mary Jordan claims
01:11that sometime after Donald won the presidency in 2016, Melania successfully renegotiated
01:16her prenup. Jordan suggests that this was the reason for her delayed move to the White
01:20House, as Melania reportedly used the time to secure better financial terms for herself
01:24and Barron. Jordan wrote,
01:26"...she wanted proof in writing that when it came to financial opportunities and inheritance,
01:30Barron would be treated as more of an equal to Trump's oldest three children. And it is
01:34possible she was still using this tactic during the 2024 campaign. Melania was absent for
01:39nearly all of it, aside from the occasional appearance."
01:42Ron Filipkowski of Minus Touch News said in an interview,
01:45"...there's no doubt in my mind that he sweetened the prenup to get her to do the bare minimum
01:49and just go out and give one five-minute interview to Fox News."
01:53Melania and Donald are not often seen together in public, and some claim it's the same story
01:57behind closed doors. Mary Jordan told The Guardian,
02:00"...I don't know any couple that spends as much time apart. They are often in the same
02:03building but nowhere near each other. She's a loner, he's a loner. They're perfectly happy
02:08to be separated. She's not the only one to have made these kinds of claims."
02:12A Trump source told Us Weekly,
02:13"...they have separate bedrooms. They never spend the night together. Ever. Melania wants
02:17as little to do with Donald as possible."
02:19"...I'd rate myself less than a great husband."
02:22While the separate bedrooms rumor was denied by a Trump spokesperson at the time, another
02:26person would eventually make the claim, this time under oath. Adult film actress Stormy
02:30Daniels testified during the ex-president's hush money trial in 2024 that the night they
02:35slept together, Donald told her that he and Melania did not share a bedroom.
02:40Barron is Donald and Melania's only child together, but there are rumors that Barron
02:43doesn't have a close relationship with his father. Allegedly, this is Melania's doing
02:47and is what she prefers. Author Michael Wolff, who has written several books on Donald and
02:52his first administration, told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell in 2019,
02:56"...his son is not, effectively, not at all a part of his life, even though he lives with
03:02him."
03:03Melania, however, is very much involved in Barron's life. A source who knows the Trumps
03:06told People,
03:07"...Melania will keep her hand on Barron's future just as much going forward as she has
03:11throughout his early and current school years. He is her world. She is proud of him and she
03:15is the primary decision-maker on Barron and his future."
03:19Perhaps the craziest conspiracy theory about Melania and Donald's marriage is that he uses
03:23body doubles to stand in for her at events she can't attend. These rumors started online
03:27after Melania was pictured wearing large sunglasses and looking a bit unlike herself during Donald's
03:32first administration. People then found other similar examples, and the Melania body double
03:37conspiracy was born.
03:38These rumors became so widespread that Donald weighed in on them himself, writing on X in
03:432019. The fake news photoshopped pictures of Melania, then propelled conspiracy theories
03:48that it's actually not her by my side in Alabama and other places. They were only getting more
03:52deranged with time. It was a strange way to shut down the rumors, seeing as no images
03:57had been altered.
03:58But regardless of how weird Donald's response to the conspiracy was, the truth is there
04:02was never any fake Melania Trump to begin with.
04:06Donald Trump usually isn't open to everyone else's ideas, but he'll definitely listen
04:10to Melania. Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told People,
04:13"...if she saw something on the news, she would call him and say, this is on the news,
04:17I don't like it, you shouldn't be doing this. He did not always listen, but sometimes he
04:21did listen. I think of anybody in the whole White House, he listened to her the most."
04:25In fact, it's even been said that Donald is genuinely afraid of his wife. The couple have
04:29been together for almost three decades, and those around them know her power over Donald.
04:33Kellyanne Conway even told the January 6th committee,
04:36"...he listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump."
04:40"...we have a very, very, pretty much equal relationship, wouldn't you say?"
04:45Melania has had to put up with a lot being married to Donald. But according to rumors,
04:49she knows how to get back at him publicly when she is mad or embarrassed. There have
04:53been notable occasions where she refused to accompany him to events or traveled separately
04:57from him, even though there was no obvious reason for her to do so. For a man who married
05:01a beautiful woman allegedly because she made him look good in photos, this is punishment
05:05indeed.
05:06Author Mary Jordan told The Guardian,
05:08"...the way she shows that she's upset with Trump is to walk away, to be invisible, and
05:12he doesn't like that."
05:13She didn't get in the car with him to go to the State of the Union, a 10-minute car ride,
05:17after there were lengthy reports about infidelities with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
05:22Melania often looks miserable around Donald and has even swatted away his hand a few times.
05:27Then there was the time she frowned after he looked at her on his inauguration day.
05:30Because of moments like these, comedians like Jimmy Kimmel have joked that Melania hates
05:34her husband.
05:35If we could somehow harness the energy of Melania's hatred for Donald Trump, we could
05:39power the world."
05:40But people who actually know the couple have said the same thing. Noel Kassler, who worked
05:44with Donald on The Apprentice, told Swagger magazine,
05:46"...she hated him on The Apprentice. They would come in separate cars and she wouldn't
05:50say two words to him."
05:52Even in on-the-record interviews, it can be hard to get any real affection out of Melania
05:55when it comes to Donald. Michael D'Antonio, author of The Truth About Trump, once interviewed
06:00the pair. He told Vanity Fair,
06:02"...he begged her to praise him to me as a husband. Literally, he said, tell him I'm
06:05a really good husband. She looked at him and he repeated himself, and she said, yeah, he's
06:09a really good husband. It was being dragged out of her."
06:13A 2018 poll found that only 18 percent of Americans thought Donald had been faithful
06:17to Melania during their marriage. But what about Melania? Well, some people claim she
06:22hasn't been faithful to Donald, either.
06:24When asked by Swagger magazine if Melania has a boyfriend, Noel Kassler said,
06:28"...yes, she does. His name is Hank Seamers. He's the head of security at Tiffany's. That
06:32marriage is an arrangement."
06:33Kassler expanded on this claim on X, writing that Melania didn't even live with Donald
06:37during the time he knew them, but with her boyfriend. Novelist Monica Byrne also made
06:41similar claims on X, although she did not reveal who her anonymous source was. She wrote,
06:46"...word is, for many years, Melania's been having an affair with the head of security
06:50at Tiffany's in the Trump Tower lobby, with DT's knowledge."
06:54Melania looks so unhappy at times with Donald that after he was elected in 2016, many people
06:59started using the FreeMelania hashtag on social media. They even wrote variations of it on
07:03signs. It's not clear if Melania actually wants to leave her husband, but according
07:08to Noel Kassler, the couple were on the verge of divorce at one point. He told Swagger magazine,
07:12"...they were probably headed to divorce before Trump won the election."
07:16Monica Byrne also backed up this claim, writing in an X post,
07:19"...they had an agreement, written, I think, that if DT lost the election,
07:22they'd get divorced. But then he won, so they had to renegotiate the agreement.
07:26She's imprisoned in that marriage for as long as he's president."
07:29Even Vanity Fair noted that the gossip among their friends was that,
07:32after the Access Hollywood tape came out, Melania was getting ready to divorce Donald.
07:36Of course, as of late 2024, this has still not happened.
07:40"...it is not concern and focus of mine."
07:44Donald Trump married Melania in 2005, and within six months,
07:47she was pregnant with their son Barron. She was 35 years old at the time,
07:51but what Donald was allegedly worried about was how she'd look after giving birth.
07:55A source told Vanity Fair that the couple had what seemed like a contract, adding,
07:59"...she promised him that everything would go back to the way it was."
08:02Allegedly, he also made it clear that she wanted to have a child, not him.
08:06The same source claimed,
08:07"...there was no, how do you feel? No opening of doors, making sure she didn't fall.
08:11Just, you wanted to have a baby."
08:13Melania clearly cares about the way she looks, but whether that comes from her background as
08:17a model or from a need to please her husband is unclear. Stephanie Grissom told People,
08:22"...I watched her go through every single photo that the White House photographers
08:25ever took of her and approved them one by one by one.
08:28So what she looked like was a real obsession to her."