Melania Trump is set to make her first appearance with her husband, President Trump, in two weeks tonight at his first State of the Union address. The speech comes following what has widely been viewed as a turbulent couple of weeks for the First Couple. On January 12, The Wall Street Journal published a report alleging that, in the run-up to the 2016 election, Donald Trump's lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels £92,000 to keep quiet over an (also-alleged) affair with Donald a decade ago. The following week, InTouch magazine published an interview conducted in 2011 with Daniels in which she discusses a sexual encounter with Trump.
Melania Trump hasn't made an official statement, but 'close' friends of hers told The New York Times that she was 'blindsided' by the story and is 'furious.'
CNN notes she did not appear at two dinners hosted by her husband at Mar-a-Lago during a trip in mid-January. She later canceled a trip she was supposed to take to Davos, Switzerland last week, where President Trump was speaking at the World Economic Forum — the change in her RSVP was because of 'scheduling and logistical issues,' according to East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham. Incidentally, that week marked the Trumps' thirteenth (lucky for some!) wedding anniversary, which neither mentioned on their social media accounts.
Instead, while her husband was abroad, Melania made an unannounced trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. She documented the trip on her social media profiles.
That same day, CNN reported that she then flew down to Mar-a-Lago. While there, she reportedly spent some time in the resort's spa, because who doesn't love a shiatsu massage?! Melania's roundtrip four-hour flight to the resort cost taxpayers £45,000, btw, according to People. Presumably her spa treatments weren't cheap either, but (it's believed) she picked up that tab herself.
Over the weekend, Grisham again addressed the various rumors on Twitter. 'The laundry list of salacious & flat-out false reporting about Mrs. Trump by tabloid publications & TV shows has seeped into 'main stream media' reporting,' she tweeted. 'She is focused on her family & role as FLOTUS — not the unrealistic scenarios being peddled daily by the fake news.' (It is believed that Grisham was, in part, responding to a Daily Mail article that claimed Melania had spent multiple nights in a Washington, D.C. hotel following InTouch's publication of their Stormy Daniels interview.)
At tonight's State of the Union address, Melania will be accompanied by guests including Ashlee Leppert, an aviation electronics technician who rescued dozens of Americans during hurricane season, and the parents of Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, two girls who were killed by New York's MS-13 gang. In an archaic (and borderline sexist descriptor), the New York Times has labeled the SOTU the 'most high-profile appearance of the year for first ladies,' but hey, considering her spa day, I expect Melania will at least be looking very refreshed for her big moment.
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