The marriage of President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump remains under a microscope after reports claimed she has barely been in the White House since the Republican politician’s inauguration in January 2025.
Speculation that the Trumps’ relationship is merely for show has been the talk of Washington, D.C., for years. Biographer Michael Wolff’s recent remarks poured even more fuel on the gossip fire.
“They clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage. And I think maybe we can more specifically say they live separate lives,” stated Wolff about the POTUS and FLOTUS on a recent episode of “The Daily Beast Podcast.”
Wolff is best known for penning popular books about Trump. He released the best-selling “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” in 2018, which was followed by “Siege: Trump Under Fire” in 2019.
“They are separated. The president of the United States and the first lady are separated,” Wolff emphatically told “The Daily Beast Podcast” host Joanna Coles.
Wolff’s unsubstantiated details about the first family received an on-the-record response from the Trump administration. White House communications director Steven Cheung addressed the matter with The Independent.
“He is an imbecile of the highest order, and his Trump Derangement Syndrome-addled brain has caused him to lead a miserable existence devoid of reality,” Cheung said about Wolff, who has been a vocal critic of the MAGA leader.
Wolff has not been the only person to suggest that Melania is no longer in a loving relationship with the most powerful person on the planet. Allegations of marital issues have been plaguing the couple since Trump’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021.
Melania has been filmed multiple times appearing irritated with her husband in public. At Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017, the former model’s facial expression quickly changed from a smile to a frown after Trump turned away from her direction during the ceremony.
In May 2017, Trump reached out to hold Melania’s hand while they were walking on the tarmac of Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. Cameras caught her seemingly batting him away. The awkward moment went viral and inspired countless memes. However, Melania downplayed the incident.
The mother of 19-year-old Barron Trump asserted that the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, at the airport played a role in the clumsy exchange.
“The red carpet simply could not accommodate four of us abreast,” Melania wrote about the moment in her self-titled 2024 memoir, per Metro. “It was a minor, innocent gesture, nothing more.”
For the second Trump administration, the first lady has mostly stayed out of the spotlight. She did join her husband for the funeral of the late Pope Francis on April 26 at the Vatican.
Melania then made a rare appearance at the White House on May 8 for a Mother’s Day reception. Trump stood beside her in the East Room as she thanked him for his “kind words” before giving a speech about motherhood.
Neither that Mother’s Day show of affection between Donald and Melania, nor the White House denials about a split have stopped people from theorizing that the Slovenian-American former model secretly despises her spouse.
“It’s not a marriage, it was a business transaction,” one person stated in the comment section of The Daily Beast channel’s YouTube episode about the president’s marriage. Another tongue-in-cheek reply in the channel read, “Melania shows up as required in her contract.”
On The Independent’s website, someone commented, “That is clearly a sham marriage – nothing more, nothing less.” Another person put forward, “She got what she wanted out of Trump, and she needs to milk him for all he’s worth.”
Newsweek readers had opinions about the Trumps’ marriage, too. For example, one person stated, “She can’t stand him, it’s obvious.” A second offered, “Anything the Trump camp labels as ‘blatant lies and fabrications’ usually turns out to be true.”
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Donald and Melania celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary this year. The New York real estate mogul and his third wife tied the knot on Jan. 22, 2005, in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to reports, Melania initially met her future husband in 1998 at a party in New York. Trump was still married to television personality Marla Maples at the time. Maples wed Donald in 1993. They separated in 1997 before formally divorcing in 1999.
Maples gave birth to Trump’s second daughter, Tiffany Trump, in 1993. The late Ivana Trump was the mother of “The Apprentice” reality show star’s three oldest children. After marrying Donald in 1977, Ivana gave birth to Donald Trump Jr. in 1977, Ivanka Trump in 1981, and Eric Trump in 1984.
Remaining Trump’s wife has provided notable opportunities for Melania. In 2025, she controversially launched a $MELANIA memecoin. Melania also secured a $40 million licensing deal with Amazon to produce a Brett Ratner-directed documentary about her life.
‘Clearly a Sham Marriage’: New Report Claims Melania and Donald Trump Are Living Separate Lives and the White House’s Response Is Only Fueling the Buzz